Homecoming
by Athena Alexandria
Summary: How was he supposed to have a relationship with her in the present when she couldn't let go of the past? Spoilers for The End. Jate. PLEASE READ AUTHOR'S NOTE.
1. Chapter 1

Wow. When I said I was thinking about giving up Jate fics, I didn't expect such a strong reaction! I want to thank everyone for their kind words and support, especially Tahti and AtholBrose. I finally managed to come up with an idea that I like so I've decided to take everyone's advice and try writing an ongoing post-finale fic. Hopefully this one doesn't depress people. ;)

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Chapter 1.

Los Angeles, California

Kate twisted the ring around her finger as she sat behind the wheel of her Volvo, outside the gates of the white two-storey mansion that had been Jack's home for the first eighteen years of his life. She wasn't sure what had prompted her to put it back on when she found it in the top drawer of her dresser – it wasn't like they were still engaged – she just found the familiar weight of it comforting. Somehow it made her feel connected to him, like he wasn't completely lost to her after all.

She had to go in some time, so with a sigh, she woke the engine and turned into the drive, where she got out at the foot of the tiled staircase that led up to an imposing red double door. Once she'd rung the bell, she wrapped her arms around herself to hide her unease as she waited for someone to open it.

The first thing she noticed about Jack's mother when she answered was that her dark eyes – Jack's eyes – were rimmed with pink as though she'd just finished crying. "Mrs. Shephard," she greeted her with a tight smile, forcing herself to hold her gaze even though there was so much of Jack in her – or her in Jack – that it hurt to keep looking at her.

She seemed surprised to see her there and for a moment Kate wondered if she even remembered her. "Kate? What are you doing here?"

"I'm here about…" Her voice caught in her throat; most days she couldn't bring herself to utter his name "…about your son," she finished, swallowing hard.

For the first time, Margo looked at her as if she were really seeing her. "Oh God. I didn't even think to call you," she whispered.

It had been all over the news since they got back: how Ajira Flight 316 from Los Angeles to Guam had crashed, killing everyone on board but the pilot and a handful of passengers, including four of the Oceanic six. Her name wasn't on the manifest, of course. Years on the run had taught her how to obtain fake travel documents so that she could pass borders undetected. "It's okay. I know," she assured her. That much, at least, was true.

The other woman's shoulders slumped with relief on hearing that she wasn't going to have to deliver any more bad news. "How are you holding up?" she asked Kate. "I know you and Jack were close."

It stung her to hear their relationship described in such vague terms, but then what were they to each other when he died? She loved him and he loved her, but what did that really mean? Not enough to keep him from sacrificing himself for the good of the island.

The truth was that she wasn't coping as well as she knew she should be. There was a part of her that was having trouble accepting the fact that he was really gone; she was still waiting for him to turn up, to finish what he needed to do on the island and come find her so that they could go back to the way things were before. If she went to a therapist, they would call it denial, but it was hard to deny something that you had no proof of, and the last time she saw him he was still very much alive.

"I feel like I should be asking you that," she told her, to deflect the question, but she didn't need to hear Margo's answer to know that she wasn't doing much better. In the space of three years she'd lost her husband, then her only son, only to find him and have him taken from her again. It was too much for anyone to handle.

That was why she was here: to bring her some peace. "Do you mind if I come in?" she asked her. "There's something you need to hear."

Margo seemed to remember her manners then. "No, of course not," she said, stepping aside to let her past.

She led her through to a sitting room that Kate had only seen once, not long after they'd gotten together, when Margo had invited them over for lunch so that he could formally introduce them. He hadn't wanted to bring Aaron, afraid that she would notice the resemblance to his father, but his mother had insisted. It felt strange being here without him now. A lot of things felt strange without him. It was hard to imagine that one day her life would return to normal and missing him would be something she only did occasionally.

She was too nervous to sit down so she perched on the edge of the sofa while Margo went to the liquor cabinet in the corner. "Would you like a drink?"

A pang of longing came over her as she eyed the bottle in the other woman's hand. During their first week back – she still refused to think of it as home – she and Miles had taken turns picking Sawyer up from various bars in the middle of the night when he was too drunk to drive himself. She wished that she had the luxury of succumbing to her grief the way that he had, but unlike him, she wasn't alone. There were too many people depending on her. "No, thank you."

Margo poured herself a glass of straight Scotch and carried it to one of the overstuffed armchairs. "So what's this about my son?" she prompted her once they were both settled.

Kate had spent the better part of a week trying to figure out the best way to tell her. "There's no easy way to do this, so I'm just going to come right out and say it, like he would," she began, pausing to gather her thoughts before rushing on. "Jack wasn't killed in a plane crash."

Margo drew in a sharp breath. "What are you saying? That he's still alive?"

She wished that she could agree, but in her heart, she knew that the man she loved was dead. Anything else was just wishful thinking. She shook her head. "I'm saying that's not what happened."

"How do you know what happened?"

"Because I was there."

Over the course of the next hour, she told Jack's mother everything, including about Claire, glossing over some of the details that seemed incredible even to her, like the monster who'd worn Locke's face.

"I know it's a lot to take in," she said once she'd finished describing how Jack had given his life to make sure the rest of them were safe, "but I thought you should know that your son died a hero."

Margo was silent as she digested this and Kate wondered how much of it she actually believed. "If you loved him, then why did you leave?" she asked finally. "Why didn't you try to stop him?"

It was the same question that kept Kate awake some nights. "He told me I had to get everyone on the plane, and I'm glad that he did, because it wasn't just me he saved."

She scooted forward until she was close enough to place her hand over Jack's mother's. It saddened her to think that if things had been different, she might be her mother now too. That the family that she'd come to love so much could have been hers. "There's another reason I came here today," she confessed. "I wanted to tell you that you're going to be a grandmother."

Until then, Margo had been focused on the drink in her other hand, but she glanced up at her in surprise. "You're pregnant?"

For the first time since she'd arrived, Kate smiled. When she saw the circle in her datebook, and realised that the date had been and gone, she bought three tests to make sure, all of which said the same thing. On the first, she prayed that it was true; on the second, she wished desperately that it wasn't. By the time she got her third positive she was resigned to the fact that she was having this baby with or without him. No amount of bargaining could change that. "Yeah," she agreed.

"Did Jack…?" Margo looked hopeful.

"I didn't find out until we got back," she admitted. Ever since then, she hadn't been able to stop wondering if it would have made a difference. She wanted to believe that if he had known, he wouldn't have been so quick to sacrifice himself, but she knew him well enough by now to know that it only would have made him more determined to ensure that they both got away safely, even if he didn't. It was one of the things that she both loved and hated about him.

"I'm not asking for anything," she assured her before she got it into her head that this was about claiming some kind inheritance. He'd already given her enough, including the one thing that she'd wanted more than anything else in the world. "I can provide for this baby on my own. But it would mean a lot to me if you would agree to be in its life. I think it's what he would have wanted." She knew from the stories he'd told her that he hadn't always gotten along with his parents, but that hadn't stopped him from loving them, and she had no doubt that they had loved him.

When she finally allowed herself to look at Jack's mother again, she saw that she was beaming at her through her tears. "Thank you," she whispered.

* * *

Tunisia

When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was in a long room full of low metal cots, each one occupied by someone who appeared to be worse off than him. All around him were the sounds of human beings in pain: some moaning or wailing while others cried out in a language that he thought must be Arabic, though he couldn't make out what any of them were saying.

"Where am I?" he demanded, grabbing the sleeve of the man who lent over his bed to examine him. The man muttered something incomprehensible and pushed him back down and feeling the sharp pinch of an IV tugging at his skin, he was forced to let go.

"You are in a hospital," a voice announced, and to his relief, he realised that whoever it was speaking English.

"How did I get here?" he asked when a man came into view.

"A group of men found you in the desert," he explained. "When you came to us you were severely dehydrated and delirious from heat stroke. We believe you had not had anything to eat or drink in several days."

Whatever they did to nurse him back to health must have worked because he felt fine now. He threw off the thin cotton sheet and sat up, noting for the first time, the almost symmetrical scars that marked his stomach above the waistband of his boxers: one small and neat, like those made during surgery, the other long and ugly, as if whoever or whatever had cut him had wanted to do as much damage to him as possible. Both looked to be between a few months and a few years old.

He shook off his surprise, returning his attention to making his escape. "Where are my clothes?" he insisted, his eyes travelling from the dresser to the chair by the bed in search of whatever clothing they brought him in.

"They were covered in blood so the nurses to destroyed them. We will find you some more when you leave," the man promised.

He checked the rest of his body for injuries, but however he'd ended up covered in blood, it couldn't have been his.

"You are an American, are you not?" the man continued. It was more of a statement than a question. "What were you doing out there without a guide?"

He must have gotten separated from the rest of his group. He tried to recall some detail that would help him piece together the events that had led to him wandering in the desert alone, but the truth was he had no idea what had happened to him. After a moment, he gave up and shook his head, both in response to the question and to try to clear it.

"You are still confused then?" the man said, sounding disappointed. "Never mind. Perhaps there is someone we can get in touch with. What is your name?"

That at least should be easy. But when he reached back into his mind for the answer, he came up with another blank. It was as if he hadn't existed before he'd woken up here in this hospital. "I don't… I don't remember."


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for all of your wonderful reviews. 39! Wow! That's a new record for me! ;)

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Chapter 2.

Los Angeles, California

Jack always liked her in green, Kate thought as she smoothed the silk blouse that she'd put on in place of her comfortable sweats down over her hips. Today was one of the biggest days of her life and yet instead of being excited, all she wanted to do was to crawl back into bed and watch daytime soaps with the curtains drawn until her mind was blissfully numb, but there was somewhere else that she needed to be.

"Are you going out?" Claire's voice asked, breaking into her thoughts.

She turned away from the mirror to see her standing in the open door to her room. "I have an appointment with my new OB," she reminded her. She hadn't expected her to remember when she was still trying to adjust to being back in the real world, but Claire looked chastened.

"That's today? Hold on, let me get Aaron ready and we'll go with you."

"It's okay," she assured her before she raced off to wake him from his nap. She was actually looking forward to getting away from them for a while. As much as she loved having them there with her, she was beginning to feel unwelcome in her own home; Claire looked so wounded whenever her son asked Kate to cut off his crusts or tuck him into bed instead of her that she was trying everything in her power to discourage it, which left her with little to do herself. She was already dreading the day when Claire packed their bags and took him to live with her mother in Australia and she was left to roam her empty house alone. If everything went to plan, she would have the baby, of course, but that was still more than eight months away. A lot could happen in that time. "Margo's meeting me at the hospital."

She could see that Claire was surprised. "Jack's mum?" Though they'd never met, for obvious reasons, she recognised the name.

"Yeah. When I told her I was going she asked if she could come along." Even when she and Jack were engaged, she'd never imagined that they would be close, but the more time Kate spent with her, the more she realised that Margo understood better than anyone what she was going through because she'd lost Jack too. But while she was still young enough that she might meet someone else and fall in love again one day when the pain wasn't so fresh, Margo would never have another son.

"I think it's sweet that she wants to be involved," Claire announced, trying to sound upbeat, though Kate knew she was disappointed at not being invited along. She didn't like being left alone, probably because it reminded her too much of the island.

Under any other circumstances it would be, but this was about more than just wanting to be a good grandparent. "This baby is all she has left," Kate said softly. That was why she needed it almost as much as Kate herself did.

Claire seemed to sense that they weren't just talking about Margo. "Are you okay?" she asked.

She wasn't, but she couldn't afford to fall apart now. Today was going to be difficult enough. "I should go," she told her, striding purposefully into the hall. "I don't wanna be late."

* * *

"Now the main aim of today's appointment is to put together a complete medical history," the doctor explained once they were seated across from her at her desk. She consulted the list in front of her. "Have you ever been pregnant before, Kate? That includes any pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or abortion."

"No," Kate assured her. She'd had scares like a lot of women, but last week was the first time she'd ever been confronted with the sight of a positive pregnancy test. It made her hate him just a little bit. How could he do this to her and then leave her alone to deal with the fallout? Did it even occur to him that it wasn't just the island that needed him?

"That makes things easy." She watched the doctor make a note of this. "Have you or anyone else in your family ever suffered from any serious physical or mental illness?"

"My mother has cancer," she agreed; as an afterthought she added, "My father was an alcoholic," just in case it was relevant.

"Okay, what about Dad?"

Kate's heart constricted painfully as she saw him turn to her with a grin in her mind's eye. He would have gotten a kick out of being called that. She wished he could have been there to hear it. "He had appendicitis, a couple of years ago," she managed to answer. "That's the only time I've ever seen him sick." Both she and Aaron had had the flu twice while he was living with them, but it never seemed to affect him. He was the healthiest person she knew, which was why his death had come as such a surprise. She'd always pictured him outliving them all, even her.

"Anything else?"

"My husband – his father – died of a heart attack," Margo supplied and Kate flashed her a grateful smile. She was so distracted that she hadn't even thought to mention it.

The doctor wrote this down on her clipboard. "And finally, have you or the baby's father ever smoked or used drugs?"

She hadn't, except for the occasional stolen cigarette with Tom back in high school, but Jack... "Does that include opiates?"

"That includes any prescription medications you or your partner are taking," the doctor agreed.

She closed her eyes, forcing herself to remember the name on the bottle she'd found in their bathroom right before she kicked him out. He was clean by the time she got pregnant; she'd never imagined that his addictions might one day hurt their unborn child as well. "Oxycodene," she told her, staring straight ahead when she opened them again, afraid of the disappointment in Margo's face if she didn't already know. "He was taking Oxycodene. I'm not sure how long for."

* * *

"The other thing I need to do today is confirm and date the pregnancy," the doctor told them once she'd finished with the exam. She dragged her stool over to Kate's side. "So if you would just lie back…" She trailed off when she finished adjusting the equipment and saw that Kate hadn't moved. "Is something wrong?"

It was all becoming too real. "I just didn't realise you were gonna do an ultrasound today," she replied with a weak smile. She wasn't supposed to do this without him. He was supposed to be here. What if there was something wrong? Or worse, what if the tests had been faulty and she wasn't really pregnant at all?

A positive's a positive, she reminded herself. He was the one who'd told her that.

"Do you want to call your fiancé?" the doctor asked, misunderstanding the cause of her hesitation. "Maybe he can still make it."

It was as if he'd gotten caught up in surgery and lost track of the time. Her voice stuck in her throat as she allowed herself to consider that fact that he really wasn't coming; that for all Claire and Margo's good intentions, she was alone in this. It was all she could do to hold herself together. She shook her head.

"My son passed away a few weeks ago," Margo explained.

Right away, the doctor realised her mistake. "I'm very sorry for your loss," she said. She turned to Kate. "Would you like a minute?"

Kate sucked in a deep breath, counting to five in her head just like he'd taught her before she trusted herself to answer without bursting into tears. "I just wanna get this over with," she told her, settling on her back so that the doctor could prep her.

"Well then let's take a look, shall we?" She moved the transducer around until a dark oval appeared. "There's the gestational sac." She pointed to a tiny grey shape against one side. "There it is. There's your little one, right there. And there," she announced, circling something at the centre with her finger, "is the heart."

It didn't look anything like a baby, but if she squinted hard enough, Kate could just make out the faint flicker of the minute organ expanding and contracting. "I don't hear anything," she told her, fighting to suppress her panic. "Shouldn't we be able to hear it?"

"You have to remember that it's still very early," the doctor reminded her with a kind smile. "Depending on the baby's position, we might not pick up a distinct heartbeat for another three to six weeks."

"But it's okay?" she insisted. As small and insignificant as it seemed now, it was the only part of the man she loved that hadn't been taken from her. She didn't know what she would do if she lost it too. "I really need for it to be okay."

"It's fine, Kate," the doctor assured her, and when she turned to beam at Margo, she smiled back at her tearfully. "Better than fine. It's perfect."

* * *

Tunisia

Home could be anywhere, so rather than have to face the outside world before he was ready, he decided to stay on at the hospital. In exchange for helping out by changing bedpans and redressing wounds and doing whatever else he could to make himself useful, they let him use one of the cots and on nights when he wasn't working the late shift, Amir – the only English-speaking doctor there – would take him into the village to eat dinner with his family.

At the end of his first week there, a boy was brought in with massive head trauma after a jeep accident that took the life of his father.

He was washing the floors at the time, but he stopped when the boy started seizing. "He could have a subdural hematoma," he announced; as soon as he said it he knew that he was right. It was like a sixth sense, only he had no idea where he'd gotten it. He set his mop back in the bucket and moved over to where they were struggling to hold him down.

"We need to relieve some of the pressure. Do you have a drill?" He repeated the word, miming drilling into his palm until finally getting it, one of the nurses scurried off, returning a moment later with a handheld power drill. "Perfect."

He searched the room until he found Amir. "Tell them to sterilise the bit," he said, rolling up his sleeves. "And make sure they give him enough anaesthetic to knock him out for a few hours. We don't want him waking up in the middle of the procedure."

Amir repeated his instructions in Arabic and while they were organising all of this, he washed his hands and snapped a pair of latex gloves on over the top.

He expected to feel nervous, but as he drilled into the boy's skull, below the bruise, a strange calm came over him as though this was what he was born to do. He'd done this before. He was sure of it. Once he was confident that the hole was big enough, he used forceps to stretch the skin around the opening and inserted a drainage tube to draw the rest of the blood away from his brain.

"Is he going to make it?" Amir asked, joining him at the sink afterwards as he was cleaning up.

All in all it had gone pretty well. "Barring any complications, I don't see why not," he told him, wiping off the drill bit. It was hard to believe that he'd just used it to save a child's life.

Amir was silent for a moment. "So you are a doctor too?" he said finally.

Ever since the surgery, he'd been asking himself the same question. How else would he have known what to do?

If they were right, then he was one stop closer to figuring out who he was. "Yeah," he agreed with a grin. "I guess I am."


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks for the reviews. I'm still amazed by the reception this fic is getting. All of the comparisons to the show are extremely flattering. ;)

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Chapter 3.

Los Angeles, California

Kate opened the door on the third knock to discover Margo waiting on the other side. It was the first time that she'd come to the house to see her. She hadn't even known that she knew where she lived. Jack must have given the address when they were living together, she realised. After her trial, she'd made sure that it wasn't listed in the phonebook. "Come in," she told her.

Margo stepped into the foyer and Kate pushed the door closed behind her.

"I have something for you," she said, taking an envelope from her purse.

She seemed smaller somehow, less imposing now that she was no longer on her own turf. Kate couldn't imagine what she had to give her. She glanced from the envelope, back up to her as she opened it. Inside was a cheque, made out in her name. "This is over a million dollars," she read aloud, staring at her in shock. "Margo, I told you I don't your need money. I'm doing just fine on my own." Financially, at least.

"It's Jack's share of the settlement," she explained. "They sent it to me because I'm his next of kin, but it should've been you. You were there. You're the one who's suffered the most."

Regardless of whether or not she deserved it, Kate couldn't bear the thought of profiting off his death when she would give it all back in a heartbeat for even just one more moment with him. It terrified her that she was already starting to forget things, like what his skin smelt like. She still had one of the old dress shirts that he'd missed when he'd packed his belongings and moved out, but it wasn't the same as being near him.

"I appreciate what you're trying to do but I can't accept this." She slid the cheque back into the envelope and handed it back to her.

"Fine." Margo tucked it back into her purse. "I'll just use it to set up a trust fund for the baby," she told her, lifting her gaze back to hers with a defiant smile and Kate couldn't help smiling back at how Jack-like this was.

"I can see where he got his stubbornness from." She pressed her hand to her stomach, which was just beginning to curve outwards, the tiny bump already straining the buttons of her jeans. It wouldn't be long before she had to make the switch to maternity clothes. "Let's hope he doesn't inherit it too or else we'll both have our hands full."

Margo arched a thin eyebrow at her. "He?"

It was still too early to know for sure, but somehow she'd gotten it into her head that her child was male. She wondered if it was because, secretly, she wanted him to be just like Jack. "I think it would be nice if it was a boy," she admitted.

"Me too," Margo agreed. "How are you feeling today?"

She couldn't remember ever being this tired in her life, but that was less to do with being pregnant, and more to do with the effort she'd been putting into keeping up the pretence that she was fine. That she didn't sob into her pillow every night when there was no one around to hear her, until she fell asleep herself. That there wasn't a small part of her that wanted to die too.

"Still a little nauseous, but aside from that I've been lucky," she said, even though she didn't feel particularly lucky. She hadn't had any complications yet but then most women who did had their husbands or boyfriends to help them get through it so the two things kind of cancelled each other out. "So far it's been a pretty easy pregnancy."

It was too soon for Margo to go home. The drive back across town would take her at least half an hour with traffic. "Would you like to stay for coffee?" she asked her.

Margo hesitated as though afraid she was keeping her from whatever she'd been doing before she came to answer the door. "Coffee would be great," she agreed finally.

She followed Kate through the living room, admiring her surroundings as they went. "This is a lovely place you have here."

"Thank you," Kate said automatically, her eyes straying to the pictures of the three of them, still on the mantel. "Jack helped me pick it out."

* * *

"_As you can see, it's very spacious – perfect for a growing family," the real estate agent announced as they trailed into the foyer with Aaron – now almost five months old – nestled in a sling across Kate's chest._

_It wasn't the first comment like that that she'd made. She seemed to be under the impression that the three of them were a real family. Kate couldn't say that she blamed her. She probably would have arrived at the same conclusion after seeing them pull up in the new silver Volvo she'd purchased with her compensation money. Her eyes locked briefly with Jack's, the flicker of tension between them causing them both to look away._

_After a moment of awkward silence, he cleared his throat. "I like the hardwood floors." He tapped one of the floorboards with the toe of his boot. "Is this oak?"_

"_As a matter of fact it is," the agent agreed. "White oak." She shifted her attention to Kate. "The best thing about oak floors this is that they're easy to clean. What's your little boy's name?"_

_Her words prompted the usual surge of pride, followed by the now familiar guilt as her thoughts turned to Claire. "Aaron."_

"_So say Aaron spilled his grape juice. You could just mop it right up. No fuss."_

_So far it all sounded good to her, but then wasn't that the point? "What's the area like?" she asked. She wanted Aaron to grow up somewhere safe and middle class. Somewhere where he wouldn't know the horror of her own white trash upbringing._

"_It's a very popular neighbourhood for families with young children. There's a low incidence of crime, good school within walking distance, a park just down the street. I think you could be very happy here. Why don't I show you the upstairs? Then I'll leave you alone to discuss it."_

_They climbed the stairs after her and she took them down the hall, pointing out the bathroom, the master bedroom and three smaller ones, any of which she suggested would be ideal for a nursery. Kate wasn't sure what she would do with two spare rooms. She had no use for a home office and she couldn't imagine a scenario in which she would have guests. Maybe she would turn one into a playroom for Aaron when he got older._

"_Do you have any questions?"_

_Kate didn't, so she glanced up at Jack. "No, I think that about covers it," she told the agent when he shook his head._

"_Well, then, why don't you two compare notes while I go make a few phone calls?" She took her cell phone from the inside pocket of her coat and disappeared back out onto the landing._

_Kate waited until her footsteps receded down the stairs before she spoke. "So, what d'you think?"_

"_I think you're the one who's gonna be living here," Jack said, as if to remind her that it wasn't really his place._

"_I'm serious, Jack." Buying a house to raise her son in was one of the most important decisions that she'd ever had to make. She had no idea what she was doing and she was afraid of getting it wrong, so as usual, she found herself looking to him. That was why she'd asked him along today: because she trusted his judgement above all others'. "What would you do? If you were me?"_

_He shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn leather jacket, staring up at the ceiling as he considered this. "We've been all over LA and I don't see how you're gonna do any better than this, especially for the price they're asking. If I were you, I'd take it." He turned back to her. "What about you? What do you think?"_

_She had a good feeling about this place, like maybe she really could be happy here. She smiled, pressing a kiss to the top of Aaron's bald head. "I think we're home."_

_

* * *

_"I'm actually thinking I might sell it once Claire and Aaron move out," Kate confessed. The idea had been running on a loop inside her head ever since they got back. "If I do it in the next few months, I could be settled some place else by the time the baby's born." Deep down she knew that it was crazy because if she went through with it, she would still be unpacking boxes and rearranging furniture well into her third trimester, but grief was making her crazy. She just wanted it to stop.

She could see that Margo didn't approve. "Why on earth would you do that?"

As she moved over to the sink, going through the motions of filling the percolator, she thought of all the times she'd watched him stand in that same spot, his hands touching the same objects that hers were now. He was everywhere in this house. It was hard not to think about him. "Some mornings I'll be down here making breakfast and it stills feels like he's right upstairs," she confessed. "Like any minute he's gonna come down those stairs. Or I'll be lying in bed, trying to sleep and I'll swear I hear his truck pull up outside." She turned around so that she was facing Margo again, leaning back against the bench while she waited for the coffee to brew. "How can you stand it?" She'd stayed in the same house for three years after losing her husband, and now that Jack was gone too, she still didn't show any signs of wanting to leave.

"It's my home," she said simply. "Some of my best memories are in that house."

As painful as it was sometimes, the same was true for her. The first real happiness she'd ever experienced was here in this house. Maybe she shouldn't be so quick to get rid of it.

Before she could tell Margo this, Aaron came barrelling down the stairs, a flustered-looking Claire on his heels. She caught him by the arm, pulling him around to face her. "Aaron! What have Kate and I told you about running in the house?"

She tensed when she noticed Margo standing at the island, as though she'd guessed right away who she was. "I'm not interrupting, am I?"

Kate shook her head. Their meeting was inevitable. She was just glad that it was happening now, before the baby arrived. "Claire, this is Margo Shephard. Margo, this is Claire," she introduced, each word loaded with hidden meaning.

Margo stared at Claire as if she'd seen a ghost. In a way, she had. "You look just like your father."

"Thanks," Claire said, her voice rising as though she were asking a question, looking uncertain, as if she were trying to figure out if this was a compliment or an accusation.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. "Well, it was nice meeting you, but we should probably be going," she said, taking her son's hand. "I promised Aaron I'd take him to the park today."

"Wait," Margo called after her as she led him over to the door and she stopped, turning back towards her slowly. "I understand how difficult this must be for you, Claire – seeing me here, like this – but you don't have to rush off on my account. Kate and I were about to have coffee." She flashed her a tentative smile. "Why don't you join us? Then maybe we could all go together."

* * *

Tunisia

His quick thinking had made him a legend in the hospital and the nearby village, which meant that two things had changed: one, he was assigned his own patients to take care of, and two, instead of 'You!' or 'American', he was now affectionately referred to as 'Doc'.

As frustrated as he was that he hadn't been able to remember anything about who he was or what he was doing so far from his homeland, it felt good to finally have a purpose.

Rayhan, the boy whose life he had saved, had returned to full consciousness after the surgery without any sign of permanent brain damage, much to the relief of his mother. Since then he had been keeping a close watch over him, but he was almost fully recovered now.

"Doc! Doc!" He was checking the sutures of a woman he suspected had been beaten by her husband, but he looked up to see Rayhan pointing to the old TV set mounted on a bracket in the corner.

He followed his finger to the screen, to what appeared to be a news report. What interested him about it, however, was the video they kept cutting back to, showing a bunch of dishevelled people climbing out of a life raft on the beach. He recognised the face of one of the men. It was the same face he saw every day when he looked in the mirror. "Turn it up!" he shouted and guessing what he wanted, someone did, but his heart sank when he heard that it was all in Arabic.

"Amir! What are they saying?" he asked, calling his friend over.

"Indian airline Ajira Airways has been forced to close its doors after an almost unprecedented fifty million dollar payout was awarded to the families of the forty-two passengers killed when their flight crashed on route to Guam last month," he translated, speaking quickly as he tried to keep up with the anchor. "Just five passengers survived the crash, along with the pilot, who managed to get the plane to Papua New Guinea before making an emergency landing. Among the dead are four members of the so-called 'Oceanic Six', who gained infamy in 2005 when they became the sole survivors of another air disaster. Sayid Jarrah, Hugo Reyes, Sun-Hwa Kwon, Jack Shephard and Kate Austen, along with her newborn son, were confirmed dead along with three hundred and twenty-four other passengers, but later discovered alive when their life raft washed up on the Indonesian island of Sumba. While their reasons for travelling to Guam remain unknown, it is believed that Jarrah, Reyes, Kwon and Shephard all perished in last month's crash."

Tunisia was a long way from Guam, but at least he knew that there were people looking for him. That he hadn't just fallen out of the sky. At least not alone.

From there, finding out his name was just a simple process of elimination. He clearly wasn't from the Middle East, nor was he Hispanic, which only left one choice. "Jack," he repeated, trying it out. "Jack Shephard."

It felt right.

* * *

Next chapter: Someone from Jack's past pays him a visit. ;)


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for the reviews. I'm glad people are still so enthusiastic about this fic because I have some exciting stuff planned for the next few chapters, starting with this one. ;)

* * *

Chapter 4.

Tunisia

Later that night when his patients were asleep he decided to use the dial up connection on the hospital's one and only computer to do some digging in the hopes that it might spark a memory.

On entering the name from the TV into the search engine, he discovered that it brought back two kinds of hits: those relating to two plane crashes that he'd reportedly been involved in and a few that listed him as part of the St Sebastian Neurosurgery Group at St Sebastian's hospital in LA.

So he was right. He _was_ a doctor. Not just a doctor, but a neurosurgeon. That explained how he'd known what to do with the drill.

The images that accompanied the articles were enough to convince him that he must really be the Jack Shephard from the news. The resemblance was uncanny. He just wished that he still felt like that person; that he could remember pulling off any of the amazing feats that he was credited with, like delivering the final member of the Oceanic six on an island somewhere in the South Pacific or helping a woman with a crushed spinal column walk again.

He'd obviously maintained close relationships with his fellow survivors, he realised as he scrolled over paparazzi-style pictures of himself leaving Sayid Jarrah's wedding, and two years later, Kate Austen's trial. Close enough for him to take another trip with three of them. He should be sad that most of them were dead now, but they didn't feel like his friends. They felt like strangers. It was as if it had all happened to somebody else and he was just reading about it.

No one knew that he'd survived. It would be easy to disappear, to start over again in a place like this where who he was didn't matter, just what he could do. But after watching the news footage of them disembarking the plane in Honolulu and seeing the woman who came out of the crowd to embrace him, he knew that that wouldn't be fair. Somewhere out there was at least one person who missed him.

He opened a new search window and typed in three words: 'American Embassy, Tunisia'.

* * *

Los Angeles, California

"Thank you for inviting me today."

It was the day of Aaron's fourth birthday and Kate was sitting out on her back porch with Margo, drinking fruit punch while a dozen children tore the inside of her house apart.

"It's Claire you should be thanking, not me," Kate told her. She had helped out by giving her the phone numbers of some of the mothers from the park and driving her and Aaron to the store, but other than that, she'd left the planning up to her. The party had been her idea, after all.

"Claire?"

Kate couldn't blame her for being sceptical. She was just as surprised when Claire suggested it. She wasn't even sure that she would come until she showed up on her doorstep with another gift for the pile. "You were married to her father for almost fifty years. I think she's hoping she can get to know him through you," she explained. Now that her brother was gone, there was no one else left to tell her about him.

"I wish she could have known him the way I did. Despite what Jack may have told you, he really was a wonderful father. He loved that boy more than life itself. He would have been devastated if he'd lived long enough to see what happened to him."

Kate knew from experience that there was nothing she or anyone else could say that would lessen her pain so she just sat with her in silence until Margo's cell began to ring. "Would you excuse me for a moment?" she said, digging around for it in her purse and Kate nodded. "Yes, this is she," she heard her say as she moved to the other end of the porch to answer it, her voice fading until Kate couldn't make out her part of the conversation anymore.

Whatever it was, it looked like good news, Kate thought as she watched Margo's tired expression change to one of disbelief, her hand shaking as it came up to cover her mouth.

It was at that moment that the back door opened and Claire's head appeared, scanning the garden for her. "Kate!" she called when she spotted her sitting by herself. "Are you coming back in? Aaron wants to open his presents now."

Kate knew better than to keep a four-year-old waiting. She got up slowly and went back into the living room to rejoin the party just as Aaron yanked the paper from a toy fire engine while Claire cheered him on from behind her camera. She looked so happy that for a moment, Kate could almost believe that it had all been worth it, until she was struck by the memory of his last birthday, when she and Jack had unveiled the shiny new tricycle that they'd bought for him here in this very room.

"Who was that?" she asked Margo when she finally came in, eager for something to distract her. She looked as though she'd been crying.

"Just the lawyer calling to tie up a few loose ends," she assured her, folding her arms as they watched Claire help Aaron free a Spiderman action figure from its box.

She didn't seem to want to elaborate so Kate decided that it was best to let it go. "That reminds me," she told her, changing the subject. "My OB is going on vacation on Friday so they rescheduled my appointment for tomorrow." Now that she was in her twelfth week, she was both looking forward to and dreading it since the doctor was going to try again to listen for a heartbeat. Just this morning she'd woken up crying from a nightmare that she wasn't able to find one. She couldn't wait until her baby was big enough for her to feel it moving so she would know that it was alive. "That's not going to be a problem for you, is it?"

Margo gestured for Kate to step into the kitchen with her. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I have to go out of town for a couple of days so I won't be able to make it. But if you ask Claire, I'm sure she'll be happy to go with you instead."

Not for the first time, Kate had the sense that there was something that she wasn't telling her. It wasn't like her to give up the opportunity to bond with her future grandchild. "Is everything okay?"

"Why don't you let me worry about that?" she told her, the fact that she hadn't answered her question not lost on Kate. "You just take care of yourself and that baby of yours. Then when I get back I'm going to insist that you let me take you shopping."

"It's a little early to start buying things for the baby," Kate insisted. "We don't even know what it is." So far she hadn't even been able to bring herself to start clearing out the room she'd set aside for the nursery. It was the kind of thing she'd always imagined doing with Jack. She wasn't ready to start making decisions about themes and paint colours without him, but all around her, life was going on without him. Their baby was proof of that. As hard as she tried, she couldn't stop herself from leaving him behind.

"I'm not talking about the baby. How much longer do you think you can get away with pinning your jeans like that?" Margo teased her.

Kate glanced down to see that the bottom of her tank top had ridden up, revealing the safety pin she was using to hold the zip closed beneath her belly. "Oh," she whispered, tugging it back down over it with a self-conscious smile. She hoped no one else had noticed.

Margo cast an appraising eye over her. "You're fortunate that you haven't put on much weight anywhere else. When I was pregnant with Jack, I went from a size six to a size nine. My breasts were huge," she told her with a wry smile and Kate burst into stunned laughter.

"I just wanted to make sure everything was on track before I went out and spent a fortune on replacing my wardrobe," she explained. She'd never considered herself superstitious before, but since discovering that she was pregnant, she was terrified of doing something to jinx it.

"Well you're in your second trimester now," Margo reminded her gently, "so there's no excuse for you not to invest in some proper maternity clothes."

* * *

Tunisia

Two days after he got the address from the embassy's website, Jack managed to hitch a ride into the capital with a courier who had come out to the hospital to deliver medical supplies.

He hadn't considered how far-fetched his story would sound until he caught the dubious looks the clerks exchanged on hearing him try to explain why he couldn't provide them with basic information like his own middle name or date of birth, neither of which had appeared in any of the articles, though according to the media, at the time of his recent "death" he was approximately forty-one years of age.

In order to prove his claim, he agreed to let the doctor they appointed run the gamut of tests, from blood tests to cranial CT scans and MRIs to a mini-mental status examination designed to measure both long term and short term memory; he went over the results himself afterwards but he couldn't find any evidence of a brain injury sustained in the crash or of neurological disease.

He couldn't leave the country without a passport, and they couldn't issue him with one until they verified his identity, so once the doctor convinced them that he was telling the truth, he was granted a small cash loan to pay for his food and accommodation while he waited for them to cut through the red tape.

At the end of his first week in Tunis someone called his hotel to inform him that they'd located an identifying witness, who was flying in from Los Angeles with his birth certificate and photocopies of his passport later that afternoon. After spending days in limbo, he was relieved that something was finally happening, but at the same time he was nervous at the thought of meeting someone from his past, who would no doubt be disappointed that he didn't remember the same things that they did.

When he arrived at the embassy for his appointment, he was met by the Consulate-General himself, who ushered him down a long hallway to a conference room where a dark-haired woman Jack guessed to be in her fifties or sixties was waiting alone.

"Mrs Shephard?"

She turned at the sound of her name, her eyes filling with tears at the sight of him emerging from behind the official and he recognised her as the woman from the video. "Jack!" Before he knew what was happening, her arms were around him and she was holding onto him so tightly that it made his ribs ache. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, you hear me? I don't think my heart can take it a third time."

It wasn't hard to see that she loved him. He wished that he were as overjoyed by the reunion as she was. "I'm sorry, who are you?" he asked her when she released him.

A flicker of hurt passed over her features as she searched his expression for a sign that he was just kidding.

"We had our doctors examine him and it appears that Dr. Shephard is suffering from retrograde amnesia," the Consulate-General explained. "He has no memory of his life before eight weeks ago. That's why it took us so long to contact you."

The woman nodded, composing herself before she turned back to Jack. "I'm your mother. I'm here to take you home."

* * *

Next chapter: Kate gets the shock of her life. ;)


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks for the reviews. For anyone who's still wondering, as some of you guessed, Margo didn't want to tell Kate about Jack until she could check the situation out herself. But I know you're all dying for her reaction, so without any further ado...

* * *

Chapter 5.

Los Angeles, California

"You're almost at thirteen weeks now so we should be able to get a clear reading this time," the doctor assured Kate, squirting a thin line of gel onto her belly. "But if we don't, I don't want you to panic, okay? It could just be the way that the baby is positioned."

Kate nodded, but when she picked up the transducer, placing it against her skin, she felt her own heart begin to beat faster. Beside her, Claire seemed to sense how anxious she was, giving her hand an encouraging squeeze and Kate flashed her a watery smile, grateful that she'd decided to come along to support her.

She wasn't aware that she was holding her breath until the image of her unborn child appeared on the screen. "Wow. He's so big now," she whispered, amazed at how much the little life inside of her had changed since her last appointment. In just a few short weeks it had gone from a tiny speck roughly the size and shape of a peanut to a recognisable human being with clearly defined arms and legs, even the beginnings of its own unique face. While she wouldn't know for a while yet, as she studied its profile, she found herself wondering who it would look more like: her or Jack.

She was relieved to see that although she couldn't feel it yet, it was moving around. "You've got an active one there. He doesn't want to hold still," the doctor announced with a frown, adopting her use of the pronoun.

Kate laughed as she watched her baby jump around on the monitor. It reminded her of a little frog.

"I guess we know which one of you he takes after," Claire teased her and she grinned back. She'd spent so much time trying to imagine which parts of it would come from Jack that sometimes she forgot that there were some that would come from her too.

The doctor slid the transducer back and forth across her belly until the sound of the heartbeat poured from the speakers. "There." She turned up the volume until it pulsed through the room, causing Aaron to glance up from the colouring book spread across his knees with a curious look. "One hundred and seventy beats per minute."

"Is that good?" Kate asked. It was almost twice as fast as her own resting heart rate.

"That's _normal_," the doctor assured her with a smile. "You can relax, Kate. You and your baby are both doing extremely well."

* * *

"You know, you should think about getting a Belly Belt," Claire piped up, watching Kate wrestle with her zipper after the doctor left her to get dressed.

"A what?" Kate asked with a laugh, giving up and replacing the pin when it caught above her hipbone.

"A Belly Belt," Claire repeated in a serious voice. "It's like this little panel that goes in the front of your jeans or your skirt to give you more room. They're great. I had one when I was pregnant with Aaron. It saved me a fortune."

Kate smiled, touched by her willingness to give her advice. It was nice to know that she wasn't alone, that she had someone to talk to who could relate to what she was going through. That was one thing that Margo hadn't really been able to help her with since she hadn't been pregnant since the sixties. "Thanks, Claire. I'll keep that in mind."

Claire returned her smile, and it warmed Kate's heart to see how close to the old Claire she was. "That's what sisters are for."

* * *

Somewhere over the Atlantic...

"So my father is dead?" Jack glanced up from the picture his mother had taken out to show him of him standing beside a grey-haired man. He felt as though he were cramming for a test, trying to fill his head with as much information as he could before their plane touched down at LAX and he was expected to return to his life.

"That's right," she agreed. "He had a heart attack four years ago, in Sydney. You went there to retrieve his body."

And then his plane had crashed. "That must have been a terrible time for you." He may not love her the way he was supposed too, but that didn't stop him from empathising with her on hearing how much she had suffered or feeling as though he were responsible for it.

"You have no idea." She took another sip of her wine. By his count, it was at least her third glass, which only added to his sense of guilt at not being able to give her her son back.

"You said I have a sister?" he prompted her, changing the subject.

"Half sister. Claire. And you're an uncle. She has a beautiful four-year-old boy named Aaron."

"What about me? Do I have any kids?" The absence of a ring on his left hand assured him that he wasn't married, but that didn't rule out divorce.

He just wanted to prepare himself but this question seemed to strike a nerve with her. She turned towards the window with a pensive look, sipping her drink. "Not yet," she answered finally and he breathed out a sigh of relief. That was one less thing he had to worry about.

"You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that," he told her. He would hate to think what him not remembering them would do to them if he did.

* * *

Los Angeles, California

"Did she say what it was about?" Claire asked as Kate pulled up in front of the Shephard house.

Kate shook her head. All she'd been able to get out of Jack's mother when she called that morning was that she needed to come over right away and bring Claire and Aaron.

"Good, you're here," Margo called, coming down the steps to meet them.

"What's going on?" Kate asked her, shutting off the engine. "You sounded so mysterious on the phone."

To her surprise, Margo opened the back door and slid into the car beside Aaron. "I have some news for you both," she explained. She closed her eyes, fidgeting with the pendant around her neck while she gathered her thoughts. "This may come as a bit of a shock, but Jack—" Kate felt her breath hitch at the mention of his name "—is alive. A group of men found him in the desert in Tunisia. I went there to check it out." She turned to Kate. "That's why I had to miss your appointment."

Kate tried to respond, but there were no words that could convey the tide of emotion that swept through her. She felt as if her heart was about to explode. Jack was alive.

"Did he come back with you?" Claire asked.

Margo eyed Kate with a hesitant look. "He's inside."

"Jack is here? In this house?" After months of missing him, praying that he was still out there somewhere, trying to find a way back to her, the thought that he was right on the other side of the door was almost too much for Kate to bear. Before she could think about what she was doing her hand was on the door handle and she was scrambling out of the driver's seat.

"Wait," Margo said, the desperation in her tone stopping Kate in her tracks. "I know how eager you must be to see him, Kate, but before you go in there, there's something else you need to know."

All of a sudden, she was afraid. "He's okay, right?" she pressed, a painful lump forming in her throat. She could feel the excitement of moments before slipping away from her as she tried not to think about what bad shape he'd been in the last time she saw him or all of the things that could have happened to him when he went down into the heart of the island. What if he was hurt or disfigured? They were about to have a baby. She didn't know if she would be able to take care of him too.

"Jack has what they call 'retrograde amnesia'."

"Amnesia?" she repeated, certain that it had to be some kind of joke. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to run into his arms, clinging to him while he kissed her passionately, vowing never to leave her again. At least that was how it was on the few occasions that she'd allowed to fantasise about it.

"What does that mean?" Claire asked with a calm that Kate envied. It was all she could do not to burst into tears.

"It means that his procedural memory is intact, so he can still drive a car or perform complicated surgeries, but he can't remember simple details about his life," Margo explained, choosing to focus on her rather than Kate. "He didn't even know who I was."

If his own mother was a stranger to him, then what were the chances that he would recognise her? "How did this happen?" Kate demanded, struggling to come to terms with what Margo was telling her. She honestly didn't know which was worse: losing him to that island or finding him again only to discover that the memories that had sustained her for the last few months were no longer shared by him.

"No one knows for sure. The doctors at the embassy checked him out and aside from that he's in perfect health. The best answer they could come up with is that it's a form of PTSD."

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Could it be that that was all it was? "That means it's only temporary, right? Sooner or later he has to get his memories back?"

"I wish I could say how long it will last, but the truth is he might _never_ remember," Margo told her gently. "We just have to be patient with him, try not to overwhelm him with too much new information. That's why I think it's best not to mention the baby to him just yet. He needs time to adjust."

* * *

"Jack, this is Claire and Aaron," his mother said, returning to the living room with a petite blonde woman and a boy who was clearly her son.

It only took Jack a second to recognise the names as those of his half sister and nephew. He closed the _TV Guide_ that he was examining, more out of a sense of restlessness than any real desire to watch anything, and stood up from the couch. "Hi," he greeted the woman – his sister – running his fingers through the side of his hair as he tried to figure out whether or not they were close enough for him to hug her. All he knew was what his mother had told him, and from what she'd said, he hadn't discovered her existence until a few years ago.

She solved the problem for him by closing the distance between them, wrapping her thin arms around his waist. "I'm glad you're alright," she told him. "Aaron missed you. He kept asking when you were gonna come home."

As soon as she let him go, the little boy – Aaron – launched himself at him, catching him around the legs. "Jack!"

"Hey, buddy," Jack greeted him with a smile, reaching down to scruff his hair.

"Who's this?" he asked when he looked up and saw that a third woman had come in with them, hanging back near the entrance as though she wasn't planning on staying. His mother hadn't said anything about another sister.

"This is Kate. She's…" His mother trailed off, at a loss as to how best to explain her presence.

She obviously wasn't part of the family. The tension in the room increased as he glanced from his mother to Kate, regarding her with a polite smile as he waited for someone to clue him in as to their relationship.

"A friend," Kate supplied at last, forcing something more akin to a grimace than a smile, her voice thick with some emotion he couldn't pin down. "It's good to see you, Jack."

He couldn't help noticing how beautiful she was, with long chestnut curls that hung down her back and sad green eyes that searched his the same way his mother's had, as though she believed she might find something of the old him buried beneath the layers of confusion if she looked hard enough; while she couldn't have been much older than thirty, she had the worn expression of someone who had suffered a lot in her short life and still hadn't come out the other side. It made it hard for him to keep looking at her.

He wasn't sure what to do so he held out his hand, relieved when she took it. "It's good to see you too."

* * *

Next chapter: Jack goes looking for Claire but finds Kate instead... ;)


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks for the reviews. Now that Jack is back I'm not going to specify the location anymore. You can just assume that it's LA unless stated otherwise. I'm glad that most people seem to be enjoying the direction that I'm taking this fic in, although I'm curious to know what you meant when you said you didn't think there was enough conflict, Sue. How did you think I was planning to write it?

* * *

Chapter 6.

"Kate?"

He was the last person she expected to find when she opened her door. She hadn't had any contact with him since their brief encounter at his mother's house – almost two days ago now – when she had stayed just long enough for it to sink in that whatever was causing his amnesia wasn't going to wear off just because his ordeal was over. It wasn't that she didn't want to be around him – more than anything she just wanted things to go back to the way that they were – it was just that she _couldn't_. It was strange to think that for months, all she'd wanted was for him to come home, safe and alive, and now that he had, she was doing her best to avoid him.

"You seem surprised," she teased him, trying to keep her tone light.

"I am," he admitted, lifting a hand to scratch the back of his head in a way that she knew meant that he was feeling awkward; she caught a glimpse of the familiar design on the inside of his forearm before he dropped it again. "I was looking for Claire." His gaze travelled over her shoulder, to the stairs and beyond. "Is she home?"

The question itself was innocuous enough; there was no reason why it should hurt her as much as it did, except that it confirmed what he'd already told her: he hadn't come there for her. The worst part of it all was that he had no idea how much pain his behaviour was causing her and she didn't know how to tell him. "She took Aaron to the paediatrician. They should be back soon if you don't mind waiting," she told him, surprised at how stiff and formal her voice sounded. She hadn't even felt this disconnected from him when he walked out on her or when he gave up any future they might have had together to become Jacob's replacement, because even then, underneath it all, he was still Jack. But now, it was like Jack – _her_ Jack – really had died, leaving a stranger to occupy what was once his body.

A momentary wave of panic swept through her as she wondered if the thing they called Locke had found a way off the island after all, but it was dead. Jack had made sure of that. Besides, the man standing before her didn't make her uneasy: at least not in the same way.

She moved aside to let him pass and he stepped into the house, taking everything in as if this was the first time that he'd seen it. The effect was slightly disconcerting, forcing her to look away.

She scanned the street outside instead as she pushed the door closed behind him, but there was no sign of the old Ford Bronco that had been sitting, unused, in his parking space beneath his apartment building for almost three months. She hadn't been able to bear the thought of driving it herself so she'd offered to give it to Claire, but after three years on the island, she was nervous enough taking Kate's Volvo out. "Did you drive over? I didn't see your truck."

"That's because I had to get my mom to drop me off. I went down to the DMV but they won't give me a new license until I retake the test. They're concerned that me having amnesia means my mental capacity has been 'diminished'," he confessed with the same willingness to make fun of himself that had endeared him to her when they first met. With a pang, she realised that it reminded her of the last time she saw him, before all of this, when he'd joked about his wound so that she would stop fussing over it.

How could he be so much like the man she'd fallen in love with and yet not remember any of it? "I wouldn't worry about that," she told him, swallowing against the hard lump forming in her throat. "You've taken more blows to the head than I can count and you're still the smartest guy I know." Despite their current estrangement, she couldn't help feeling proud when Margo recounted the story of how, while living in Tunisia, he'd saved a little boy's life using only a household drill. It gave her hope that the old Jack was still in there somewhere.

"Would you like some coffee?" she asked him.

"Sure." He followed her into the kitchen, leaning back against the island with his arms folded while she went about putting on a fresh pot.

"You're not having any?" he asked when he noticed that there was only one mug.

She took a glass out of the cabinet and crossed to the fridge, pouring herself water instead. "I can't. I'm pregnant," she explained. She hadn't forgotten what Margo had said, but she couldn't help wondering if maybe, just maybe, hearing her say those words would shock him into remembering.

She waited for a sign of emotion from him – joy, anger, fear, _anything_ – but his expression remained polite. "Congratulations," he told her with a sincere smile that made her heart ache because it was a smile that said he was happy for _her_. His gaze wandered down to her belly, examining the subtle curve with a clinical air. "You must be about… twelve… weeks?"

"Thirteen," she corrected him, busying herself with making his coffee so that he wouldn't see how close she was to tears. "I'm due at the end of June."

"Do you know what it is yet?" be asked, but when she turned to pass him the mug, she saw that it didn't matter to him one way or the other. He was just making conversation.

"No." And she didn't want to. It wouldn't feel right without him. "I think I'm gonna wait to find out." Then when he was himself again they could start making preparations for the baby together.

He took a tentative sip of his coffee. "This is perfect," he told her, looking stunned. "How did you…?"

"I know _you_," she reminded him.

Still nursing his mug, he wandered over to the fireplace, setting it down so that he could pick one of the pictures up off the mantel. "I've always loved that one," she told him when she saw which one it was, coming up behind him with the glass still in her hands so that she could admire it too. "You both look so happy." She had moved it there after they got back. It hurt too much to see his smiling face every time she left the house. It was hard enough knowing that he wouldn't be there when she got home.

"Was I a good uncle?" he asked her, the words transporting her back in time, to another, similar conversation.

"_Do you really think I'm good at this?"_

She felt herself tear up again at the memory of what was undoubtedly the happiest night of her life. "The best. You used to read to him. _Alice In Wonderland_ was your favourite. You told me your dad read it to you when you were a kid."

He smiled at her as he returned it to its place next to one she'd taken just last month, of Aaron with Claire. "I wish I remembered that."

She turned over the frame, removing the back and sliding the picture out. "Why don't you hold onto it?" she told him, offering it to him. "Maybe it'll stir something loose."

He glanced from the picture, back up at her, his expression uncertain. "Claire won't mind?"

She doubted that Claire would even notice it was gone. "Claire will be fine," she assured him, trying not to take offence at the fact that he hadn't asked her.

"Thanks," he said as he took it from her.

This time when their eyes locked, he didn't look away. "You know, there's something really familiar about you," he told her, "I know I've seen you before," and despite her vow to remain realistic, she thought that maybe this was it, until he continued, "Of course. You're Kate Austen. You were one of the Oceanic Six. Didn't you name your son Aaron too?" His eyes drifted back to the mantel, searching for a picture of another little boy, one who didn't exist.

"It's not a coincidence, Jack," she told him softly. She tapped the edge of the picture. "That's him. My son." She choked on the last word, remembering how upset he got the last time he heard her refer to his nephew that way. It felt foreign to her now, from a different time, when she was a different person.

He looked down at it again, as if he might find the answers there. "I don't understand. How can you and Claire _both_ be his mother?" Slowly, recognition dawned on his features, followed by surprise. "Oh."

It took her a moment to realise what he was alluding to and then she felt her own eyes widen in shock. "Wait, you think…?" She laughed, mortified. "Claire and I are _not_ gay." She patted her belly with her left hand for emphasis. "I like men."

"That's great," he told her, looking oddly relieved. "Not that I would have a problem if you were," he rushed on, struggling to save face; she could see that he was as uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken as she was. "I'm sorry, it's just that you and Claire seem pretty close."

"She's like a little sister to me," she told him simply. That at least was true.

"So you're engaged?" he asked, steering the conversation away from Claire. "To a man?"

He must have seen her ring. "It's complicated," she told him, wondering what he would do if she told him that in addition to being the father of her child, he was the one who had given it to her. Margo was right: it was too much for him to handle all at once. Was he still an addict if he didn't remember that that was how he'd once dealt with situations like this? She wasn't sure that she wanted to tempt him.

"It seems like a lot of things around here are," he pointed out, waving the picture at her. "What I can't figure out is if Aaron is your son, then why did my mom tell me he was Claire's when she wasn't even on the plane with us? What am I missing here?"

Typical Jack. Even with amnesia, letting go of the past still wasn't his strong suit. "You just got back," she insisted, unsure where she would even begin. It was hard enough explaining it all to Margo and Carole Littleton, when all she'd had to do was fill in the gaps. "Don't you think you should at least get settled in before you start doing this again?"

This new insight into his personality seemed to pique his interest. "Doing what?"

"Obsessing." Wasn't that why he'd wanted to drop the bomb back in the seventies? So that he could forget all of his failures and start over? "There're some things you're better off not remembering. The time we spent on that island is one of them." Maybe she was looking at it all wrong. Maybe his amnesia was a blessing in disguise. If he never remembered what leaving it had done to him the first time, then he would never have to go back there again. Without the memory of Juliet's death and all the other awful things that had happened there, he could finally be at peace with himself. She just wished she knew where she fit in.

"I did that a lot, huh? Obsess?" he asked with his trademark self-deprecating grin.

"It's what you do best," she agreed. "That and taking care of people."

A comfortable silence – not unlike the ones they'd shared on the island – fell over them as they exchanged smiles, but before either of them could speak, the front door swung open and Claire came in with Aaron. "I guess I must be doing something right because he said, and I quote, 'He couldn't be healthier'," she announced, stopping when she saw that Jack was with her. "I should leave you two alone."

Jack tore his eyes away from Kate's then. "It was actually you I came to see," he told her, before she could usher Aaron up the stairs. "I was hoping we could spend some time together." He showed her the picture, still in his hand. "Maybe we could take Aaron to the park?"

That was all her son needed to hear. "Can we Mommy?" he begged, tugging at the bottom of Claire's shirt. "Please?"

"Okay," she agreed. To Jack, she added, "I'd like that." She shot a guilty glance at Kate. "You should come with us."

While Kate knew that she was just trying to include her, it was obvious that Jack wanted to be alone with his sister so that he could get to know her. Between Claire's disappearance and Jack's "death", they'd never been able to have much of a relationship before. She was glad that they were getting the chance to make up for that now. That – and Claire's reunion with Aaron – was the one good thing to come out of all of this. "It's okay. You guys go ahead."

Aaron was already bounding out the door, dragging Claire along with him by the time Jack handed his empty mug back to her. "Thanks for the coffee, Kate," he said as he prepared to leave with them.

She forced herself to smile back. "Any time."

* * *

Next chapter: Jack hangs out with Claire and Aaron. ;)


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks for the reviews. Finally, you all say! I meant to have this out last week but I'm been really busy and for some reason I really struggled with this chapter. I'm also sorry to say that I'm leaving to go overseas in a couple of days (Comic Con) so I won't be able to update again until at least the second week of August. But I have a 13 hour plane ride ahead of me, so who knows, maybe I'll be inspired. Oh and I put a new poll on my profile, so don't forget to check it out. ;)

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Chapter 7.

"He's a great kid," Jack said, watching Aaron clamber back up to the top of the slide for the tenth time in as many minutes. They'd been at the park for over an hour and he wasn't showing any signs of wearing himself out yet; Jack, on the other hand, was still recovering from the time he'd spent pushing him on the swings, dropping onto the bench beside Claire as soon as a group of children lured him off to play on the fort.

"He is," she agreed, "but I can't take the credit for that."

"Why not?" Jack asked her, more lost than ever. Somehow he knew that the answer had to do with Kate. It seemed that ever since the crash, her life had been interwoven with those of his family in a way that he didn't fully understand, and it all started with Aaron.

"When Aaron was about three months old, I… got sick," Claire explained, picking apart a leaf that had fallen onto the seat. "I couldn't look after him anymore, so Kate took him in. He's been with her ever since." She threw the pieces away and started on the next, her movements becoming increasingly agitated as she spoke. "She's the one who fed him and clothed him and taught him how to walk and talk and write his own name. He is who he is because of her, not me."

"But you were the one who gave birth to him?" he pressed. He wondered if she was talking about PND or some other psychological disorder. She didn't have the sallow, gaunt look of someone who was recovering from a long illness.

Her voice was wistful as she agreed.

That confirmed his suspicions about why he looked so much like her and not Kate. She was his mother after all. At least biologically. "So why does the whole world think that Kate did?"

She finally turned to face him. "Because that's what you told them."

"Me?" Why would he lie to the media about Aaron being his nephew? And why hadn't he pursued custody of him himself? It couldn't have been about money when, as a neurosurgeon, he had to be earning close to half a million dollars a year. Maybe he just hadn't wanted him, hadn't wanted to take on the responsibility of becoming a father, although now that he'd met him, he couldn't imagine that ever being the case.

"You, Kate, Sayid, Sun, Hurley… The Oceanic Six."

"Where were you?" he asked when he noticed that she hadn't included herself in this list.

She shivered inside her coat, despite the mildness of the day. "Somewhere else."

Wherever she'd been for those three years, it didn't sound like a place that she wanted to revisit any time soon.

"But you're home now," he reminded her with what he hoped was a comforting smile.

"We both are," she agreed, smiling back.

He decided that he liked her then. She was sweet and honest and easy to be talk to. She didn't seem to expect anything of him, not like his mother or Kate, who he still couldn't figure out. Of all the people that he'd met from his old life, she was the hardest to read: one minute he thought he'd succeeded in breaking down the barriers between them, the next she'd closed herself off to him and he was forced to start all over again. He wondered if he would ever truly understand her.

"You know, I had amnesia once," Claire piped up, shaking him out of his thoughts.

This revelation took him by surprise. It wasn't like it was a common condition. "Really?"

"Uh huh," she agreed. "Right before Aaron was born. I still remember what it was like – everyone talking _about_ you instead of to you. I want you to know that you can ask me anything. I promise I won't lie to you."

She was offering him a free pass back into his life. "Okay," he agreed, relieved that she at least had no intention of withholding information from him. If he was going to try to fill the same role that he had before he boarded that plane, then he needed to know everything, not just the good parts.

"So, if you're living with Kate, you must have met her fiancé?" He wasn't sure why that particular question came to mind when what he could have asked anything about himself, her, their father…

"Her fiancé?" Claire repeated, narrowing her eyes in confusion. "What makes you think she's engaged?"

_It's complicated_, Kate had said when he'd acknowledged her ring. "Ex-fiance?" he amended, in case they'd split up and she just hadn't gotten around to taking it off. "The baby's father." When this only seemed to bewilder her further, he added, "You do know that she's pregnant, right?" If she considered Claire to be like a sister, then surely she was one of the first people she told?

The look Claire was giving him was one of sympathy mingled with pity. "She didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?" he insisted, but he could see that she was determined not to say anymore. "Tell me what, Claire? You just promised you wouldn't lie to me." He knew that he was obsessing again, but if there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was being kept in the dark.

"She's my best friend, Jack. I don't wanna get involved."

She already had by implying that she knew something that he didn't: something that she wasn't prepared to divulge. "_Claire_," he repeated, trying to keep the exasperation from his tone. "What aren't you telling me?"

Her eyes darted back to the playground, to Aaron, as she tried to come up with a way to escape the conversation. "What happened between you and Kate is none of my business."

This wasn't the response that he was expecting. Something had happened between him and Kate? He wasn't sure whether to be relieved that there seemed to be explanation for why she kept drifting into his thoughts, or concerned that whatever had happened between them was so unpleasant that no one – not even Claire – was prepared to let him what in on what it was.

"I know how hard it is to be the only one out of the loop," she told him, her voice growing softer but no less firm, "but if you wanna hear the whole story, you need to ask her."

* * *

Kate felt herself begin to deflate as soon as the door slammed behind them. Then she did something that she hadn't allowed herself to do in weeks: she locked herself in the downstairs bathroom and cried without bothering to muffle the sound now that she was alone in the house.

It seemed like every time she felt like she might be able to live with her grief, life threw her another curve ball. It had happened when she found out that she was carrying Jack's child, just two weeks after she'd said goodbye to him, and now here it was happening again, taking away any chance that she'd had of ever getting over him. When Margo first dropped the bombshell that he had no memory, she hadn't realised just how hard it would be to see him every day and know that she couldn't be with him, that while she was thinking about how badly she needed him to touch her, he would be wondering why his sister's roommate was always around.

She froze when she heard the doorbell echo through the front hall. The only frequent visitor to the house was Margo, and she would have come in with Jack if she planned on having coffee with her today. Claire must have left her keys, she decided. She was always doing things like that: forgetting to take her keys or her wallet or the cell Kate had bought for her with her when she went out. You could take the girl out of the jungle, but you couldn't take the jungle out of the girl.

She had been sitting on the toilet lid but she forced herself to get up, splashing cold water from the faucet onto her face and drying it off with a paper towel to hide what she'd been doing before she went to let them in.

But when she opened the door, it wasn't Claire standing out on the front walk, it was... "Sawyer?" She hadn't seen him in months, not since he hopped on a plane to Florida with Miles to go pay his respects to Juliet's family. In truth, she hadn't thought much about him since. Her own pain had been too all-consuming to leave room for her to worry about his. "What're you doing here? I thought you were in Miami?"

"I heard the doc was back. Thought I'd come see for myself," he explained, doing his best to sound nonchalant, as though he was just in the neighbourhood.

On a normal day, she would have been touched by this display of affection for Jack, but nothing about the last few days had been normal. "He's not here," she announced. "He went to the park with Claire and Aaron." If he wanted to know how he was doing, he could catch up with him there; she moved to close the door but his boot shot out to stop her. "So why ain't you with them?"

She couldn't blame him for being surprised. After the emotional scene he'd witnessed between them on the cliff, before Jack went off to face his death, it would be natural for him to assume that he would find them together, trying to get on with their lives. "Because he didn't invite me," she told him in the same clipped tone. She didn't want to be having this conversation with him. She wanted to go back to wallowing in peace.

When he wouldn't remove his foot, she turned and walked away, back into the house, hoping that he would get the message and go.

"Everythin' okay?" he asked, trailing into the living room after her, reluctant to leave her alone until he was sure that she was all right.

"No, it's not 'okay'," she retorted, sinking heavily onto the couch cushions. "Nothing is 'okay'." She lifted a hand to cover her face, but he pulled it away, urging her back to her feet.

"C'm'ere." He drew her against his chest and she stopped trying to fight him, suddenly grateful that he and Jack had never been close. Until now, she hadn't realised how much she needed to be with someone who wasn't struggling to make sense of his death and subsequent reappearance, since it meant that for once, she didn't have to be strong.

"I don't understand," she whispered into his shirt. "I did the right thing – I gave Aaron back. Why am I still being punished?"

She could hear the shock in his voice as he asked, "Who's punishin' you? Jack?"

She shook his arms off, stepping back out of his embrace once she'd had time to compose herself. "God… the universe… fate…" she told him, before he could come to the conclusion that Jack had knowingly hurt her, scrubbing at her eyes with her fingertips. She didn't want him to know that she'd been crying when he came back. She wasn't sure which would be worse: him feeling awful about it or him not even realising that her tears were connected to him. "He doesn't remember me. He doesn't remember anything."

She watched his eyes grow wide with disbelief. "You're sayin' he has amnesia?" When her only response was a miserable nod, he added, "You are sure it's him?" He was obviously worried about the same thing that she had been, only there was no need for that.

She found herself smiling for the first time since he arrived. "It's him," she assured him. He didn't ask her how she knew and she didn't tell him. It was too hard to explain that it was more the feeling she got from him than anything he said or did. He still felt the same. It was everything else that had changed.

"Had to make sure," he insisted, flashing his dimples at her.

As they lapsed into silence, she watched him size her up with one of his penetrating stares, trying to figure out if she was okay other than that. "I know it's good to be back, but you might wanna lay off o' the Big Macs there, Freckles," he teased her, nodding at her belly when he noticed how round it had become. "You're startin' to look a little tubby." It was the same game that they'd always played: he would ask without really asking and then she would be forced to admit whatever it was.

She couldn't stop the grin from breaking over her face as her hand drifted over it, caressing the small bump that housed her unborn child through the thin fabric of her shirt. Despite the fact that it had complicated her life in ways that she hadn't even allowed herself to consider yet, _this_ – becoming a mother for real – was still the most welcome thing that had ever happened to her. "I'm not getting fat, James," she laughed. "I'm pregnant. Just a little over three months."

She could see him doing the math in his head, counting back the days since Jack 'died'. She knew when he finally reached the end because he glanced back up at her in alarm. "Is it…?"

"Yeah," she agreed softly. "It is."

He drew in a sharp breath. "Well what'd he say when you told him?"

"He only knows that I'm pregnant," she confessed. "He doesn't know how it happened." Even if she wasn't afraid of what the knowledge that he was about to become a father would do to him, she didn't know if she could withstand seeing the blank look on his face as she described the memory that had come to mean so much to her.

He arched a dubious eyebrow at her. "You didn't think he might be interested in that part?"

"When he looks at me…" She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry again. "It's like he's not even seeing me. For three years, no matter what happened, I could always count on the fact that there was at least a part of him that still loved me, but now it's just… gone. He doesn't even know that he's _supposed_ to love me."

"So you're just gonna let him go? After all that?" He knew better than anyone what a struggle it had been for both of them to admit their feelings. "What about the kid? Don't you think it deserves to know who its daddy is?"

"You went to see Clem," she realised. Where else would that be coming from?

"'Course I did," he agreed. "I told ya I would."

"And?" She hadn't paid them a visit since she decided to give Aaron up. She couldn't face hearing any more of Cassidy's bitter remarks about Jack when the pain of losing him was still so raw and she hadn't known what to say about Sawyer anyway. She figured that it was up to him to make contact.

"And she's just like you said." His expression softened into a smile before he covered it with a mock scowl. "Now quit tryin' to change the subject."

He was quiet for a moment; when he spoke again, his voice was edged with grief. "You know how badly I wish it'd been me instead o' her? That I could trade my sorry existence for hers? I keep tellin' myself that what's done is done, when the truth is, I'd give anythin' to change what happened that day. She died thinkin'…"

He shook his head, and she knew that this was something that he would never share with her. There were parts of her relationship with Jack that she would never share with him either. They were too personal, too close to home, and they weren't those kinds of friends.

"That ain't important. What _is_ important is that you got a second chance here. You really wanna throw that away?"

He was right: she had what some people could only dream of, him included. But even so, there was still a part of her that wished that he had stayed dead, stayed on the island or in Tunisia, just stayed in the past so that she could keep moving forward, instead of back to the place that she'd found herself in when she first lost him. "I know I should be happy that he's alive, but I just want him back, James. I miss him so much." It was like a physical ache.

"Hey, it's gonna be all right," he told her, wrapping her up in another hug. He paused, as if remembering something before adding, "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be…"

* * *

(Don't worry, this is not about to become a triangle story. There's enough drama as it is!)

Next chapter: Jack is jealous of Sawyer and confronts Kate about his conversation with Claire... ;)


	8. Chapter 8

Thanks for the reviews. I'm back from my trip but I have four papers to write in the next week so you'll have to bear with me. Hopefully this extra long (and Jatey) chapter will make up for you having to wait again.

Funny story: my friend and I were on the train coming back from San Diego after Comic Con and who should be sitting behind us? None other than Zack Ward (aka. Marc Silverman), who was there for a Dollhouse signing. We didn't talk to him because he was on the phone, but how weird is that considering the number of times he's popped up in my stories? ;)

* * *

Chapter 8.

By the time the three of them walked up to Kate's house, Jack had made up his mind to confront her about their history, but the scene that greeted him on their arrival caused his resolution to falter. She was with a man he didn't recognise – her fiance and the baby's father, he assumed – leaning against him, her face buried in the broad plane of his chest while one of his hands cupped her head, the other resting in the small of her back, holding her close. He looked like he could have stepped out of the pages of a Calvin Klein catalogue with his chiselled features and wild surfer hair; of course a woman as striking as her could only be with someone like him.

"I hope we're not interrupting," he said as Claire ushered Aaron – who was covered in mud from the park and in desperate need of a bath – to the foot of the stairs.

They both started at the sound of his voice, breaking apart with matching guilty expressions, as if he'd caught them in the middle of committing a sordid act. "No, of course not," Kate assured him, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm, and it was only then that he realised that she'd been crying. "Jack, this is James."

On being introduced to the other man, Jack stepped forward to take his hand. "Good to see y'll in one piece, Doc," James said as he shook it, his accent identifying him as coming from somewhere in the Deep South, which surprised Jack since he'd had him pegged as the stereotypical blonde, sun-bronzed Californian.

He wasn't sure how to respond so he just nodded, forcing a polite smile onto his face. "So how did you two meet?" he asked, more to keep the conversation going than out of any real desire to hear the story.

"James was on the plane with us," Kate explained, looking confused.

She wasn't the only one. "I thought there were only six survivors?" So far he counted at least eight including Claire. "You know, one of these days you're gonna have to tell me what really happened on that island."

She didn't answer, averting her eyes to avoid his, and not for the first time, he got the sense that that was the one part of his past that she, at least, was unwilling to share with him, whether due to her own repressed trauma or some other less obvious reason.

He noticed that James too was eyeing her with a curious look. "Well anyway, you're a lucky guy," he told him to break the tension that had descended over their group.

He'd meant it as a compliment, of course, but James seemed to take it as anything but. "Lucky?" he repeated in a voice filled with outrage.

Jack wondered if it was because he didn't want the baby; if he was unhappy with Kate for getting pregnant. Maybe that was what she'd meant when she said it was 'complicated'.

They were saved from another uncomfortable silence by Claire, coming out of the kitchen with the phone in her hand. "I'm ordering a pizza if anyone's hungry," she announced.

"I ain't stayin'," James told her, to everyone's surprise, including Kate's. His tone was almost apologetic as he added, "You look like you got a full enough house as it is."

"Suit yourself," Claire told him, shifting her attention to him. "Jack?"

He couldn't stop himself from shooting a furtive glance at Kate as he considered the invitation. He still hadn't been able to talk to her; maybe it would be easier after James left. "Sure."

He could see by the relief in Claire's expression that this was the answer she was hoping for. "Great." She ducked back into the kitchen to make the call, leaving the three of them alone.

"That'd be my cue," James piped up as soon as she was gone.

Jack expected Kate to object, but she didn't seem to mind one way or the other. "I'll walk you out," she told him, following him past Jack into the foyer.

Even once they were outside, Jack continued to keep tabs on them through the open door, studying their body language for clues as to the nature of their current relationship. What struck him the most about their interaction was that James made no attempt to kiss her goodbye, putting his hand on her shoulder instead, his head bowed towards her, saying something that caused her to nod. Whatever the situation between them, it was clear that they weren't fighting: if anything, it looked as though he were trying to comfort her.

Once they finished speaking, she hugged him again before stepping back from the driveway to allow him to climb into his car and start up the engine.

"I have to admit, I'm a little surprised that you and James aren't living together," Jack told her when she finally came back inside.

"What makes you think we should be living together?" she asked, screwing her face up in confusion.

He nodded in the direction of her left hand. "That is his ring you're wearing, isn't it?"

A look of understanding dawned on her face as she followed his gaze to the thin silver band, winding it around her finger in a slow circle until the diamond was facing outwards from her palm. "James and I aren't engaged, Jack," she explained. "We're friends, but that's all."

It was the second time that he'd succeeded in putting his foot in his mouth, making assumptions about her and her life that turned out to be way off base. "He's not the baby's father?" he checked, still expecting to hear that he was, even if they'd ruled out getting married because of it.

"No," she agreed simply and he was surprised at how relieved he felt.

He didn't get another chance to talk to her alone until after dinner, when Claire instructed Aaron to kiss them each goodnight and led him upstairs to get ready for bed.

"So if James isn't the baby's father, where is he?" he asked her as he helped her clear up, trying to keep his tone conversational. Whoever he was, she never seemed to want to talk about him; it was as if the baby was hers and hers alone. "Why isn't he here looking out for you instead of Claire?"

She took her hands out of the water she was using to wash up the plates, bracing them against the edge of the sink as she closed her eyes, sighing heavily in response. "Because he doesn't know," she confessed when she opened them again, turning to face him with a look that was almost challenging.

"You're in your second trimester and you still haven't told him? Don't you think you should?" No sooner had the words left his mouth than a disturbing thought occurred to him. "Unless… He wasn't abusive, was he?"

His concern seemed to amuse her, drawing a tiny smile out of her. "No, never, so you can relax, Jack – we're safe."

While he was aware that Kate's life was really none of his business, he couldn't stop thinking about his conversation with Claire and the implications behind it. He and Kate had a story. He had to know what that was. "I'm gonna ask you something that may sound a little crazy, okay?" he told her.

"Okay," she agreed slowly.

"When we were at the park," he began, choosing his next words carefully. "Claire..." Was it just his imagination or did she tense? "She said that there was some… unfinished business… between us, and that if I wanted to know what it was, I had to ask you. So I guess what I'm asking is… Is it mine? The baby. Is there any chance that it could be mine?" He was sure that she was going to laugh it off by insisting that they'd never slept together, but instead she just stared at him in shock, the colour draining from her face and he felt his chest constrict. So his suspicions were right. It was possible. "Kate, if I had anything to do with this, I need to know," he pressed gently.

She was silent for a long time and then she replied, "Yeah. It's yours."

Those three words made him feel as though he'd just been sucker punched in the gut. "Are you sure?" It wasn't that he had no interest in being a father; it was just that he had no idea how to do that when he was still so helpless himself.

"Positive." Her voice was firm, without so much as a hint of doubt. She obviously hadn't been with anyone else since. "I can prove it," she added, less sure of herself now, biting her bottom lip as she waited to see whether or not he was going to take her up on this.

Under the circumstances, he doubted anyone would argue with his right to seek a paternity test before committing financially or emotionally to her and her child, but did he really want to put either of them through that, especially given the potential risk to her pregnancy? He wasn't sure why, but he trusted her. Maybe it was because of the nagging sense of déjà vu that he'd had since he met her. "How…? Obviously I know _how_…" He let out an awkward chuckle as he tried not to think about Kate having sex, or having sex with Kate, which according to her, he had at least once, even if he didn't remember it. "What I mean is, what happened? Was it just a fling or… were we in love?"

He sensed that this wasn't going to be a short conversation when she dried her hands on a dishcloth and gestured for him to come with her into the living room. "It was actually a little of both," she confessed once they were both seated, him in one of the overstuffed armchairs while she situated herself opposite him on the couch. "We were together, for almost a year. You lived with me and Aaron here in this house. One day not long after you moved in, you asked me to marry you, but before we could even start planning the wedding, we got into this huge fight and you left. Then one night we were both feeling lonely and scared…"

"And now you're pregnant," he finished, silently chastising himself for being so careless and stupid. How could he let something like that happen? He was a doctor: at the very least he should have thought about using a condom. Or maybe he had and he just didn't remember. "I'm so sorry, Kate. You must think—"

"Don't be," she insisted. "I'm not." She glanced down at her belly, touching it gently, a soft smile spreading over her face. "It's crazy, but I'm actually happy about this."

It wasn't all that crazy in light of what she'd just told him. They were engaged at one point; he wondered if starting a family together was something they'd discussed before things turned sour between them. It was just another one of the mysteries surrounding their relationship. For him, at least. "You're happy that I don't remember you?" he teased her, making her laugh.

"You know what I mean. At a time in my life when everything was falling apart, you gave me something real to hold onto." Her voice took on a wistful tone as she confessed, "I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't for this baby. Some days it's the only thing that keeps me going."

"Do you mind if I…?" He held out his hand but didn't touch her, unsure of the protocol.

Her response was a vehement shake of her head. "There's not much to feel yet, but of course not. Go ahead."

Once he was sure of her permission, he reached out, laying his palm on her belly over the soft cotton of her t-shirt. While intellectually, he understood what her being pregnant entailed, he still found it hard to believe that there was a person growing inside the hard protrusion beneath his hand: not just any person, but his own son or daughter. Kate wasn't exaggerating when she said that it was far too early in the pregnancy for it to do much, but that didn't lessen his awe at making contact with his child for the first time.

When he glanced back up at Kate, she was smiling. "This is really our baby?"

"This is really our baby," she confirmed with a tearful nod and he broke into a grin to match hers.

"When's your next doctor's appointment?" he asked her when he finally pulled away. "You are seeing an OB?"

"Yes, I'm seeing an OB, Jack," she assured him, rolling her eyes in mock exasperation, and he was reminded of what she'd said about him being obsessive. "She's very good. You'd like her. You might even know her – she works up at St. Sebastian's. Grace Connor?" There was a hopeful note in her tone; he wanted to be able to tell her that the name rang a bell, but when he searched back through his memory, he found himself coming up against yet another brick wall. He could see her struggling to hide her disappointment as he shook his head. "Nevermind. My next appointment is at sixteen weeks, so three weeks from now. I have to decide if I want an amnio by then."

"Do you?" So far she hadn't said anything to suggest that their child was less than perfect.

"I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter. I could never…" She trailed off with a guilty expression as if she were afraid that he might consider that selfish.

But he understood. He couldn't either. That was why he was glad that she'd decided to have the baby in his absence. "I wanna go with you. To your next appointment. I wanna be there." He hesitated when it occurred to him that she might not want him there. "That is, if it's all right with you?"

"You don't have to ask, Jack," she told him. "This baby is yours. I want you to be involved if that's what you want. I would never stand in the way you having a relationship with it."

He couldn't even begin to imagine how difficult this situation must be for her; he felt bad enough not recognising his own mother, but with her, it was infinitely worse, especially now that she'd confirmed what he was afraid of: she was in love with him, while all he felt was a vague sense of attachment, and if he was completely honest with himself, a growing physical attraction. "Thank you," he told her with a sincere smile, grateful that she wasn't going to try to shut him out of their lives, as tempting as he was sure that it must be.

"Do you wanna see it?" she asked shyly when they fell into a companionable silence.

"See what?"

"The baby," she told him, laughing at his puzzled expression. She pushed herself up from the couch, and made her way over to the stairs, climbing up out of sight.

When she returned a few minutes later, she was clutching a small rectangular card, which she then handed over to him.

It was a printout of an ultrasound, dated less than a week ago. He studied the grainy black and white image for a long time, tears springing to his eyes as they traced each appendage, from its head to its short, stumpy arms to the tiny pair of feet.

"You keep it," she told him when he moved to hand it back to her.

"You're sure?" he checked, pocketing it when she nodded.

He glanced at his watch. It was already after ten. "It's getting late," he announced, suddenly feeling very drained. He still hadn't fully adjusted to being back home and the news that he was about to become a father to a child he didn't even remember conceiving had left him with a lot to digest. "I should probably call my mom before she goes to bed. Otherwise I'm gonna have to borrow money for a cab." Smooth, Jack, he thought, cringing inwardly. He hadn't needed his parents to drop him off or pick him up from anywhere since his junior year of high school.

"I can give you a ride home," she offered and he wondered if she thought that was what he'd been hinting at.

"No, Kate, it's fine." He reached into the pocket of his jeans for the cell phone his mother had given him. He'd lost his sometime between boarding the plane and waking up in Tunisia. "You shouldn't be driving around LA alone at this time of night," he reminded her as he brought up the list of contacts. "It's not safe for you or the baby."

"I can take care of myself, Jack," she insisted, her green eyes narrowing with irritation. "What d'you think I've been doing for the last three months?"

She probably hadn't meant anything by it, but this didn't stop him from feeling guilty. He hadn't been there for her, but that was going to change. From now on, supporting her and the baby was his number one priority.

"Look, everybody needs help sometimes," she continued in a gentler tone. "You were the one who taught me that." The corner of her lip turned up into a wry smile. "So quit being stubborn and let me get my keys."

He couldn't resist teasing her a little in return. "You do realise that you just contradicted yourself?" he called after her as she went in search of her purse.

"Shut up, Jack."

Neither of them spoke much on the way over, except on the few occasions that Kate broke the silence to point out places that they'd been together: Aaron's preschool, the Chinese restaurant they always ordered out from, the pool where he taught Aaron to swim... It was surreal, like taking a tour of his own life. He wondered if he would get used to it before he remembered; _if_ he remembered. From what the doctor at the embassy said, that might never happen. All they could do was wait and see.

"Here we are," she announced as she pulled up in front of what he'd been told was his childhood home. He wanted to go back to his own apartment but his mother wouldn't let him until she was convinced that he could fend for himself.

All of the lights were off inside. She must already be asleep. "Thanks for the lift," he said, unbuckling his seatbelt, but making no move to get out.

"You're welcome," Kate told him, putting the car into park and shutting off the engine so that she could focus on him. "I meant what I said, Jack. I want to help you in any way that I can."

Something about the way they were sitting made him wonder if he should try to kiss her; if she wanted him to kiss her; if doing so would bring back the memories of all the other times that he had, including _that night_.

In the end, he decided that it would be better for both of them if he allowed things to remain platonic between them… at least for the time being. He didn't want to risk hurting her further by leading her on with false promises, encouraging her to believe that they could just pick up where they left off when he still wasn't sure how he felt. The next time he kissed her – if indeed there was a next time – he wanted it to be for the right reasons.

But that didn't preclude the possibility of them being friends, if for no other reason than to save their child from being caught in the middle of a drawn out custody battle. "Listen, I have an appointment at the DMV in the morning, but do you think I could stop by afterwards? Just to see how you and the baby are doing?" he finished lamely. If they'd moved to the stage where they were living together, then he must have done this countless times, yet he was as nervous as if he were asking her out on their first date.

For a moment he was afraid that she was going to say no, but then her face lit up with happiness as she nodded her consent. "I know it probably doesn't seem like it, but I'm really glad you're okay," she told him. "I've missed you."

He wanted to tell her that he'd missed her too, but that would have been a lie, so he said nothing, glancing back up at the house to avoid witnessing the pain in her expression. "I'll see you tomorrow," he told her as he slid out of the passenger seat and closed the door. "Goodnight, Kate."

"Goodnight, Jack."

* * *

Next chapter: Jack visits Kate... ;)


	9. Chapter 9

Thanks for the reviews. I know, I know: long time, no see! The truth is that my schedule is brutal at the moment. I'm taking a full time course load (four units) and working five or six days a week, which means that I have very little, if any, time left to write, so it has literally taken me this long to finish the chapter. I'll try to get another update out soon, but in the mean time, I'm going to ask you all to be patient with me. ;)

* * *

Chapter 9.

"There's something wrong with this picture," Jack announced when Kate let him in the next day, jingling the set of keys dangling from his fingers.

Her eyes went straight to the street behind him, falling on the weathered Ford Bronco parked in her driveway. It felt right to see it sitting there again, like it had every night when they were together. "You passed your driver's test!"

He tried to sound nonchalant but the twinkle in his eyes told her that he was pleased with himself. "It's not really a big deal, Kate."

"Are you kidding? It's a huge deal. I'm so proud of you!" She threw her arms around his neck without stopping to think about how uncomfortable it might make him, withdrawing them quickly when the stiffness in his shoulders reminded her of why he'd had to retake it in the first place, and then she couldn't help feeling wounded that he seemed to be able to remember everything except her.

"What's all this?" she asked to cover her awkwardness, shifting her attention to the paper bag tucked under his free arm.

"I wanted to make sure you were eating okay," he explained simply, carrying it into the kitchen and setting it down on the granite countertop.

"I don't know if I should be touched or insulted," she told him, folding her arms as she watched him unpack enough fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and eggs to feed the whole household. Did he really think that she didn't know how to take care of herself? _Especially_ now that she was pregnant?

"I wasn't implying anything, Kate," he insisted, clearly taken aback by her reaction. Of course he thought that he was doing a good thing. "You said it yourself – that's my baby. I just wanna do what I can to help out." He opened the door of the refrigerator and began putting the groceries away. "How're you feeling today anyway? You should be over your morning sickness by now, but it's not unusual for you to be experiencing abdominal pain or discomfort…"

He was speaking to her like one of his patients. She was just a case to him, something that he could treat. "You don't have to do this."

He glanced up at her, his brows knitting together in confusion. "Do what?"

"This." She wasn't sure how to put it into words, so she gestured around them at the empty kitchen. "Buying me groceries, asking me how I am, taking care of me."

"What're you saying?" he asked, frowning at her, his own temper beginning to emerge from beneath the layers of confusion. "That you want me to pretend what you told me yesterday doesn't change things?"

She wanted to scream that that was exactly why she'd kept the truth from him: she didn't want him to see her as another problem for him to solve. "I'm saying this is not your responsibility. The man I love, the man I made this baby with… That wasn't you. He was just someone who looked like you." For all intents and purposes, her Jack – the _real_ Jack – was dead. She hadn't wanted to accept that at first, but maybe it would be better for both of them if she did.

To her surprise, his eyes darkened with hurt and she realised that she'd succeeded in offending him. "You're right," he agreed. "I _do_ feel responsible for you, Kate, but not just because of the baby. You told me we were in love. That we almost got married. We had something once. I need to make up my own mind about what that was."

She couldn't hide her incredulity as she said, "So you want to _date_ me?" The idea felt foreign to her. They hadn't really dated the first time around.

"It doesn't have to be a date," he corrected her, and she wasn't sure if that made her feel better or worse. "Just let me spend some time with you, get to know you again."

It wasn't the declaration that she'd been hoping for, but if there was any chance that it might help him remember: who she was, who _they_ were, what she'd meant to him... "Okay," she agreed, deciding that anything was worth a shot at this point. If it didn't work, at least she could console herself with the knowledge that she'd tried.

"Okay?" he repeated with a tentative smile.

"Yeah," she reaffirmed with more certainty this time. "What do you wanna do?"

"What did we do… before? Aside from…?" She felt her face heat up as his eyes strayed to her belly and she grasped his meaning.

What _did_ they do? She wished she'd paid more attention. "I don't know. Normal things. Took care of Aaron. Ate dinner together and talked about our days. Sometimes we asked the nanny to stay late and we went out."

"Where did we go?"

"Come with me and I'll show you," she told him, collecting her keys from the hall table.

"Don't you wanna drive?" he asked when instead of taking him to the garage that housed her own car, she unlocked the front door.

She crossed the lawn to the old Bronco, running her fingers lightly over the hood. She'd hated it when they were together, pleading with him to trade it in for something more family-friendly, but now that it was back where it belonged, she realised how much she'd missed it. It was a part of who he was. "No. Let's take the truck.

* * *

"Are you sure this is the right place?" he asked, pulling up to the chain link fence that separated them from the airfield.

It was hard to believe that little more than three months had passed since the night that he'd asked her to meet him there. So much had happened since then. "You brought me out here on our second date," she explained as he killed the engine.

He released his seat belt and turned to face her with a wry smile. "Please tell me it didn't have anything to do with that motel back there."

The thought of him luring her to such a seedy establishment, just to have sex, was so absurd that it made her laugh. It was something Sawyer would do. "I'd already let you stay the night by then," she assured him, taking pleasure in the way his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"You slept with me on the first date?"

"No." She flashed him an impish grin. "I slept with you _before_ our first date. As a matter of fact, you asked me to have dinner with you the next morning."

* * *

_Kate cracked her eyes open to find Jack's deep brown ones focused on her. "Hey," she greeted him with a sleepy smile, pushing the tussled curls back from her face._

"_Hey," he echoed, leaning over to place a tender kiss on her lips._

_She shifted onto her side so that her position mirrored his. "How long've you been awake?"_

_He groped behind him for his watch, holding it up to the early morning sunlight so that he could read it. "A while," he answered as he returned it to the dresser, laying his head back on the pillow, clearly in no hurry to get to the hospital. "You have the cutest snore, you know that?"_

_She stared at him in horror. "I do not!" She didn't snore… did she? She had no idea. It had been so long since she'd shared a bed with anyone except Aaron._

"_Remind me to bring my Dictaphone next time," he teased her and she couldn't tell if he was playing with her or not, but it didn't really matter, because that wasn't the part that caught her attention._

_Next time. The thought made her smile. "I can't believe this is happening," she confessed. She'd fantasised about having him in her bed like this, but until last night, she hadn't allowed herself to consider the possibility that those daydreams might become a reality. "I can't believe you're here." She lifted a hand to stroke the back of his neck, as if to make sure. "I've wanted this for so long."_

"_Me too," he agreed, moving in to kiss her again._

_He propped himself up on one elbow when he released her. "Will you go on a date with me?" he asked her with an earnest expression that she found absurdly endearing after the intimacy they'd just shared. _

_There was no part of her that he hadn't seen, touched or kissed. "Don't you think it's a little late to be asking me that now?" she deadpanned. "I mean you already got some." It was true: there was no need for him to go to all that effort when she was there, ready and willing._

_She felt her own face break into a grin when he chuckled. She loved hearing him laugh, knowing that he was as happy as she was. It was a nice change from the weary, burdened Jack that she'd first come to know on the island._

"_I'm serious," he insisted. "Let me take you out tonight. Just the two of us."_

"_What about Aaron?" Until now, her whole life had been about him. She hadn't thought about how she would make room for anyone else._

"_We'll ask Veronica to stay with him," he told her and it she realised that he must have planned the whole thing out while she was sleeping, down to the last detail. "Not that I don't love Chuck E. Cheese's as much as the next guy…"_

"_But you think we could do with a little grown up time?" she finished for him. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been to a real restaurant, with wine lists and linen napkins and tablecloths._

"_Is that…?" His earlier self-assuredness waned and she could see that he felt guilty, remembering the conversation they'd had outside the courthouse. "I know you said he was part of the package..."_

"_And he is, but that doesn't mean we can't spend a night away from him sometimes," she assured him. It might even be good for him._

"_So is that a yes?" he checked, pulling her towards him. "You'll have dinner with me?"_

_She felt almost giddy at the prospect of finally being able to do something as normal as go on a date with him. After everything that they'd been through, she couldn't help feeling that they deserved it. "Yeah. I'll have dinner with you."_

_

* * *

_"Wow. We didn't waste any time, did we?" he said once Kate had finished.

The smile she gave him was sad. "We wasted too much time."

He hated seeing her so despondent, knowing that it was his fault, because he couldn't be the man that she needed. The man that she'd loved. "So why did I bring you here?" he asked her, hoping that it would keep her talking, and prevent her from dwelling too much on these thoughts.

"You said it was your favourite place when you were a kid. From the time you learnt to drive until you went off to college, you used to come out here to watch the planes land and take off. You wanted to fly one someday, but your father and your _father's _father were both surgeons and you felt like you owed it to them to carry on the family tradition. That's why you became a doctor. You didn't know how else to make them proud of you."

"I told you that?" His mother had never said anything about him wanting to be a pilot. He wondered if she even knew.

"You used to tell me everything," she agreed with a faraway expression. "When we first got together, we would talk for hours. About our families, our childhoods… If you read all the articles from when we got home, then I'm guessing you know about Wayne?" He nodded. It had been all over the news. "What you don't know is why."

He could see that she expected him to be alarmed by the knowledge that she'd killed another human being, but she didn't seem all that dangerous to him. "I don't care what you did, Kate," he told her. He'd known that she was a murderer at the time and that hadn't stopped him from getting involved with her. There must be a reason for that. "If it didn't matter to me then, why would it matter to me now?" The corners of her lips curled into a smile. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just… That's what you said when you found out the first time," she explained. "You told me we should all be able to start over."

That wasn't bad advice under the circumstances. "Sounds like I was onto something."

"Is that what we're doing here?" she asked softly. "Starting over?"

He didn't even know if it was possible when she still had one foot planted firmly in the past. What if she could never see beyond the man he was before? "Is that what you want?"

"I don't know what I want," she confessed, training her gaze on the windshield, watching a plane taxi along the runway. "All I do know, is that the three months where I thought you were dead were the worst of my life. I never wanna feel anything like that again."

Once again, he was touched by her obvious grief for him, even if he wasn't sure that he understood it. From what she'd told him, they were no longer together at the time of his disappearance, and yet she made it sound as if they were. "Can I ask you something? If we called off our engagement, why didn't you take off your ring?" That was the one part of her story that didn't make sense.

The colour rose in her cheeks and he saw that he'd embarrassed her. "I did. I put it back on after you…"

"Died?" he supplied with an ironic grin.

"Yeah. I should give it back…" She began easing it off her finger but he put his hand over hers to stop her.

"Don't. Keep it. Wear it if you want to." He didn't let go, enjoying the warmth of her skin beneath his. He'd been so isolated since he got back that it felt good to actually touch someone. "I know you're scared, Kate, but you don't have to protect me. What I need right now is for people to be honest with me, no matter how hard the truth is to hear. Do you think you can do that?"

She stared down at their hands, hesitating for only a fraction of a second before nodding. "But you have to do something for me. I'm not broken anymore. I don't need you to fix me. Don't make me into one of your projects. I can survive almost anything, but not that…"

* * *

For anyone who's wondering, this chapter was inspired by two scenes from the show: the one where Jack tells Kate that he took a flying lesson and the phone call where he asked her to meet him at the airport. I decided to link them both together.

Next chapter: Jack goes with Kate to her appointment... ;)


	10. Chapter 10

Thanks everyone for your reviews and your kind words. It's been a difficult semester, but the good news is that I handed my last paper in on Monday, and now I'm looking forward to getting back into writing this fic if you guys are still interested in reading it. ;)

* * *

Chapter 10.

After their conversation at the airfield, Jack and Kate reached a new understanding: he stopped showing up at her house with offerings, and in return, she answered his questions as best as she could. Each time he came by to visit, he made her recount a new story about their life together, but despite her promise not to hold anything back, she could never bring herself to tell him about the night he volunteered to become the island's protector. She didn't know what she would do if he made up his mind to go back there again when she needed him here, not only for herself, but for their unborn child, who had already lost its father once. She wasn't about to let it happen again.

"You look nice," he told her when he arrived to pick her up for her sixteen week check up.

Now that her second trimester was well underway, she had finally caved and started wearing the few maternity outfits that she owned: in this case, a stretchy black scoop neck t-shirt that showed off her impressive pregnancy cleavage and a pair of dark jeans with elastic panelling at the sides. The first time she put them on was the first time that she had really felt pregnant.

She folded her arms over her belly. "See, now why do people always do that?"

"Do what?" he asked, looking genuinely puzzled, and she could tell he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Compliment the pregnant girl." Ever since she'd begun to show noticeably, she couldn't go a day without someone commenting on her appearance. Just yesterday, the woman who served her at the grocery store made a big deal about telling her how good she looked. She was sure that she meant well, but instead of reassuring her, it just made her feel self-conscious. After years of doing her best to be invisible, she wasn't used to attracting so much positive attention from strangers.

"It wasn't a compliment, Kate," he insisted and she couldn't help the smirk that crept onto her lips as she waited for him to continue.

"Obviously it was," he corrected himself, clearly flustered, as though even he wasn't sure of what he was trying to say, "but that doesn't mean it isn't true. You're beautiful. Surely I must have told you that before?"

The smile slid from her lips then. He had told her that, every day in the beginning when she would catch him staring at her like he couldn't believe that she was actually right there in front of him, but then he began to change, growing more and more distant until she found herself wondering if he even saw her anymore. It wasn't until she got shot that he seemed to notice her again, and by then, he'd convinced himself that the damage was irreversible. It never seemed to occur to him that the whole time, she'd been trying to get his attention, waiting for a sign that he was willing to fight for her. For _them_. The sad truth of their relationship was that she was always the one thing he had never been prepared to go to war for.

Hot tears burned her eyes at the bittersweet memories that his words stirred up; embarrassed by this unintentional display of emotion, she turned her face away, pretending to be distracted by the sight of one of Aaron's toys on the floor, but it was too late. He had already seen.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Did I say something to upset you?"

What he'd said was exactly right; it was just the timing of it that was all wrong. She shook her head, forcing the smile back onto her face. "No, I just… I can't remember the last time I heard you say something like that."

* * *

If he was honest with himself, Jack still had no idea where he was going, so when they reached the hospital, he let Kate lead the way to the maternity wing.

As she took him on a detour past what had once been his office – now occupied by his replacement – he tried to picture himself walking those halls in a pristine white lab coat or pale blue scrubs, on his way to surgery or a consult, but it didn't feel like his life. The version of him who had felt at home here didn't exist anymore, and he was beginning to doubt that he ever would again.

He was just about to follow Kate back into the lift when a voice called out to him. "Jack! I heard you were back, but I didn't expect to see you around here so soon."

He turned to see an African American woman around his own age coming towards them. From her lab coat, he guessed that she was one of his colleagues. His eyes drifted down to the embroidery on her pocked. _E. Stevenson_, he read. "I'm sorry, but I don't…" he trailed off, scratching his head in frustration, at a loss for what to say. It was obvious from her words that she knew him, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't come up with the rest of her name.

He was relieved when Kate leaned in and whispered, "That's Erika. She was on your surgical team."

Erika. As he'd come to expect, the name didn't seem familiar at all. He wondered briefly if she was just someone he worked with or if he had once considered her a friend.

"So it's true? You have amnesia then?" Erika said, more as a statement than a question. He wasn't surprised that that the news had hit the hospital rumour mill. It was good gossip. "What's the prognosis?" Her eyes darted briefly over to Kate, as though she wasn't sure which one of them she should be addressing the question to.

That was something that he could answer. "It's retrograde amnesia, so I can make new memories, I just can't access the old ones. The doctors say there's a chance that it'll all come back to me, but there's also a chance that it won't," he confessed. "We just have to wait and see." The most frustrating part was that since his brain wasn't actually damaged, it all had to be there, locked away somewhere inside his head. All he needed to do was to find the key.

"Give it time," she told him gently. "I see miracles every day." She glanced at her watch. "I have to get to a meeting, but it was nice seeing you again, Jack. You too, Kate." She started to move off down the hall and then stopped, nodding in Kate's direction. "Oh, and congratulations."

* * *

"Who's this you've brought with you?" Kate's obstetrician asked, regarding Jack with a friendly smile as she let them both into the exam room. "Another in-law?"

"Actually, this is Jack. The baby's father," Kate told her, looking slightly uncomfortable, prompting Jack to wonder what the doctor knew about him. "Jack, this is Dr. Connor."

He didn't have to wonder for long. The doctor's expression turned to one of confusion as she opened Kate's file, shuffling through the pages until she found what she was looking for. "I seem to remember you saying at one of our earlier appointments that the father was deceased?"

He still hadn't gotten used to hearing himself described that way, especially since, in a way, it was true. He wasn't the same man that he had been three months ago.

"It's kind of a long story," Kate agreed, glancing over at him with a wry grin.

The doctor seemed to know better than to push for an explanation. "Well, the important thing is that you're here now," she told him with a kind smile. She took a pale pink gown from a hook on the wall and held it out to Kate. "I imagine you're very eager to see the baby, so why don't you go ahead and put this on for me, Kate, and we'll get started?"

He sat in a chair off to one side, watching the doctor weigh Kate and draw blood from the vein in her arm. While they had agreed to let her run all of the usual tests, they had decided against the amnio since the risks to the baby outweighed the benefits.

"You okay?" she checked when he reached for her hand as the sonagram technician set up the equipment for the ultrasound. She seemed stunned by the contact. It was weeks since he'd touched her anywhere except her stomach.

"Is it normal to be this nervous?" he asked her. Everything looked fine in the picture she'd given him, but still, he couldn't shake the irrational fear that all of the stress he'd caused her since his return had somehow affected the baby. It couldn't be healthy for either of them.

"Yeah," she assured him, squeezing his fingers. "You should've seen me before my first ultrasound. I was a complete wreck. I was so sure they were gonna find something really wrong with him. But they didn't. He's perfect."

She seemed so sure that it was a boy. "I thought you said you didn't know what it was?" he reminded her.

"I don't," she agreed. "I guess I've gotten used to thinking of it as a 'him'."

A boy. He tried to imagine what it would be like to have a son, but with no memories of his own childhood, there was nothing for him to draw on except what he'd seen on television. He wished he could remember if his own father had ever taken him to a football game or played catch with him in their backyard or given him advice about girls. All he did know was that he had read to him, and that was only because Kate had told him. Maybe a daughter would be better. At least then, he wouldn't be expected to know what to do.

He was so caught up in these thoughts that it wasn't until he felt Kate tighten her grip on his hand that he realised the doctor had already started. "He's so calm today," she told him. "It's like he knows you're here."

When he shifted his attention back to the screen, he saw that she was right: the baby was so still that at first, he wasn't sure that it was alive. Then as he watched, it jerked one of its tiny arms, almost as if it were waving to them. Of course there was no way that it could be aware of their presence. "He's just calm because you are."

She turned to him in surprise. "You're different. More like you."

More like him than what? "How so?"

"Well, when I first met you, you were so sceptical of everything, but then you started believing in things like destiny. You would've said all of this was a sign."

"A sign? Of what?"

She shrugged. "You tell me."

By all accounts, he should be dead, but here he was with her and their baby like nothing had changed. Maybe it _was_ a sign.

"Now, have you two come to a decision regarding the sex?" a third voice asked, reminding him that they weren't alone.

It seemed he wasn't the only one who'd forgotten. "I'm sorry?" Kate said, frowning at the doctor.

"Would you like me to give you an indication of the baby's sex?" she repeated patiently.

When he glanced back at the screen, he saw that she'd changed the angle, giving them a clear view. "I already know what it is," he announced with a grin. That part of his brain, at least, still worked.

Kate gaped at him in disbelief. "You can't be serious."

"I'm a doctor, Kate. It's pretty obvious," he deadpanned, unable to resist the urge to tease her a little. "I can tell you right now if you want. It's—"

"Don't you dare!" she shrieked, pulling her hand free of his and clamping it over his mouth. "If you wanna cheat, that's your choice, but I'm doing this the old-fashioned way, which means I intend to be surprised."

It was the first time he had ever really seen her look happy; the sound of her laughter filled him with a sudden rush of affection for her, and it occurred to him that it must have been moments like this one, when she lifted her guard and showed him the woman underneath, that had convinced him to fall in love with her in the first place.

"Does this mean you won't let me take you shopping after we finish up here?" he asked her when she finally let go, reluctant to take her home just yet.

Her smile faded, replaced by a wary look. "Who said anything about shopping?"

"I did." Before, when the baby was just an idea to him, he was willing to let her call the shots, but now that it was real… He didn't just want visitation rights. He wanted to be there every step of the way. He wasn't even going to let her make a decision like the theme of the nursery without him.

"Jack—"

He was beginning to recognise that tone. It meant she was about to put her foot down. "Can we have a minute here?" he asked the doctor, holding his hand out for the cloth she was using to wipe the gel off. "I can do that."

"Sure," she agreed, allowing him take over. "Why don't I wait for you in my office?"

He waited until the door closed behind her to speak. "I know what you said, but that just doesn't work for me," he told her before she had the chance to protest. "If I'm gonna be involved, then I want us to share everything, including the bills." His voice was almost pleading as he finished, "So please, let me help you."

She closed her mouth, her expression softening, and he fought the urge to smile when he saw that he'd won. He hadn't expected it to be so easy; maybe it was a sign that she was finally coming around. "Fine. But we halve everything. And only for the baby. Deal?"

That was enough for him for now, although he hoped some day soon she would allow him to take care of her too. After all, he was as responsible for her current condition as she was. "Deal."

She offered him her hand and they shook on it, then she used it to slide off the bed. "Now turn around while I put my clothes back on…"

* * *

Next chapter: Shopping and a lunch date. ;)


	11. Chapter 11

Thanks for the reviews. It's nice to be back. :)

* * *

Chapter 11.

"Okay, fine." Kate sighed loudly, turning away from the convertible crib she'd been staring at for the past ten minutes. She wished she could say she was considering buying it, but in reality, she was just too distracted to move. "Go ahead. Tell me."

"Tell you what?" Jack asked, coming up beside her with a smug expression that made her want to shake him.

"What you saw on the sonogram." Before he could protest, she continued, "Don't pretend it's not killing you to have to keep it to yourself." She knew that it must be, because the suspense was killing her too.

She levelled him with a warning glare when the corners of his lips began to twitch as though he were trying not to laugh at her. Like she was some crazy hormonal pregnant woman. "I don't know what you're talking about, Kate," he argued looking wary. "I haven't said a word about it since the hospital."

"You didn't have to! It's written all over your face!" she told him accusingly. Despite being almost unbeatable at poker, he really did have the worst poker face that she had ever seen. He hadn't stopped smiling since they left the exam room, although truthfully, she wasn't sure if that meant the baby was a boy or a girl. At this point, it could be either.

"I'm just trying to respect your wishes," he said innocently, picking up a little pair of green booties in the shape of gym boots, and she quickly averted her gaze.

The whole time they'd been browsing side by side, she hadn't been able to look at him for fear that his actions would give something away. If he lingered too long on a particular colour, or style, then she wouldn't be able to stop herself from figuring it out. She didn't know how long she would be able to live like this. "Well, you're driving me crazy, so spit it out." It was that or avoid him for the rest of her pregnancy.

His brow furrowed, his expression growing serious. "Are you sure you really wanna know?" he asked, obviously concerned about ruining the surprise for her.

"There is no way we're gonna make it through the next five or six months without you telling me, so come on, what're we shopping for—" She snatched two onesies off of the nearest rack, waving them in his direction "—pink or blue?"

Wordlessly, he pushed the hand holding the pink one down to her side so that she was left with just the blue. "It's a boy?" she checked, to make sure she was reading him right.

He confirmed it with a nod, a slow grin spreading over his face as he waited for her to digest this.

"A boy." That was what she'd been praying for. A little piece of the man she'd loved, with the same handsome dark features and beautiful brown eyes. "We're having a baby boy!" She launched herself at him in a joyful hug, and to her surprise, he wrapped his arms around her in response, burying his face in her curls.

He might not be the Jack she remembered, but he still smelt the same, she noted, inhaling the feint musk of aftershave and sweat that clung to his skin. It was one of her favourite scents in the world, after Aaron's baby shampoo: one that, until recently, she hadn't believed she would ever smell again. She drew herself a little closer, testing the boundaries by pressing her head to the centre of his chest, where she could just hear the steady thrum that assured her he was really alive.

She wanted to stay like that forever, but she wasn't sure how he would feel about that, so after a moment, she took a decisive step back, masking her awkwardness by focusing on her rounded belly instead. "I knew it," she whispered, caressing her son through the soft fabric of her shirt, even though she wasn't sure that he could feel it. "I _knew_ you were a boy."

"Is there any particular reason you wanted a boy so badly?" Jack asked when she straightened, scrutinizing her with a look that was so familiar and yet so foreign to her now. It was one she'd seen often in the early days of their relationship when he was intent on figuring out the mysteries of her heart, but somewhere along the line he'd stopped trying to get to know her.

Until now.

"It's gonna sound stupid now," she insisted.

"I'm not judging you, Kate," he assured her, refusing to look away, even when she did. "I just wanna know."

Once again, she was amazed by how much the same and yet how different he was. She'd never known him to be this calm, this patient. "I thought if he were a boy, he'd be more like you," she explained in a voice so soft part of her hoped he wouldn't hear it. She hated how vulnerable she was around him: he knew that she loved him, while he was yet to give her a single clue as to his real feelings. "But you're here now, so I guess it doesn't matter anymore. Boy or not, I'm just glad that he's healthy."

He smiled, the warm smile that always made her melt a little inside. "Me too." Seeming to sense her discomfit, he changed the subject. "So now that you know we're having a boy, will you start buying things? Or were you planning to use Aaron's old stuff?"

"I gave most of it away to the other mothers at the park. I never thought I'd have a son of my own," she confessed, reluctant to tell him that that was after he'd broken her heart the first time by cutting all ties with her and Aaron.

"We were together for almost a year," he reminded her, as if that were something that she could ever forget. "Didn't we ever talk about starting a family?"

* * *

"_You ever think about having kids?" Jack asked, peeling back the comforter and climbing into bed._

_Kate put down the book she was reading while she waited for him to finish lulling Aaron to sleep with the latest chapter of Alice's adventures in Wonderland. "I have a kid," she reminded him, tensing as she wondered if, what until then had been a perfect evening, was going to end in a fight._

"_You know what I mean," he insisted, sliding his arms around her from behind, his chin resting in the crook of her neck, and she felt herself begin to relax. "Aaron was already three months old by the time you took him in. Don't you ever wonder what it would be like to be there from the beginning?"_

_As much as it shamed her to admit it, she found herself entertaining these thoughts more and more in the days since Jack moved in. Before, having a child of her own had never seemed like a real possibility, but now that she was free, with a stable home and the love of a good man who she knew would make an even better father than he was partner she could feel that old longing fighting its way back to the surface. "D'you think it makes me a bad mother if I say 'yes'?" she asked, turning her head slightly to look at him._

"_No," he assured her, his voice muffled by the collar of the maroon dress shirt she'd pulled on instead of her pyjamas, knowing that he was only going to take it back off of her when he came in. "It doesn't."_

"_I love him like he was my own, but there're so many things that I missed out on, things that other women take for granted. I was there when he was born, but it's not the same as actually giving birth…" Ever since that night, she'd been trying to imagine what it would be like to feel the overwhelming rush of emotion she'd witnessed in Claire as she embraced her son for the first time. "It'd be nice to have at least one baby that was really mine, one that I carried." It was, after all, what she was built for._

_For the first time, she realised that she was the one doing most of the talking. She still didn't know what had prompted him to ask the question: had spending time with Aaron made him as broody as it did her at times, or was he just filing her answers away for future reference? "What about you? D'you think you'd ever want that? A baby?" she asked, shaking him off her gently, unable to keep the hope from her voice. There was a part of her that couldn't believe they were actually having this conversation; that it might lead to a living, breathing child._

_He was silent as he considered this. "Some day, if I'm ever lucky enough, then yeah. I would," he agreed seriously. His smile was teasing as he added, "I just have to find the right woman."_

"_Oh, the right woman, huh?" she repeated, returning his smirk. "So you're good enough to come into my home and raise _my_ child, but I'm not good enough to have yours?" She felt a thrill of excitement on hearing the words said out loud. His child. _Their_ child. As wonderful as first time parenthood had been for her, she'd always regretted not having someone to share it with, someone who would love and support her through all of the sleepless nights and help her celebrate each of the milestones._

_A tiny smile played at the corners of his lips and she could see that this affected him too. He cupped her jaw lightly in the palm of his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "I can't think of anyone I would rather have my children," he told her, moving in to kiss her, and even though they weren't ready yet, as far as she was concerned, that day couldn't come fast enough._

_

* * *

_"What about after we got engaged?"

Between you getting drunk and stoned? she wanted to ask him, but instead, all she said was, "Things were already kind of strained between us by then."

She needed to get him off the subject. "What d'you think of these?" she asked, holding up a pair of corduroy overalls. Aaron had something similar in blue, but even without seeing him, she knew that brown would suit their son better. He was definitely going to be a brunette.

Jack didn't even look to see what she was showing him. "Why don't you ever wanna talk about what happened? About why we broke up?" he insisted, following her to the next rack. He wasn't angry, just frustrated.

She continued to pick through the row of tiny coat hangers to avoid making eye contact with him. "Because we both said and did a lot of things I'd rather forget," she told him finally. "You're lucky you don't remember." Not for the first time, she wondered if this had happened because he wished for it. He wanted to forget her, and now he had.

"Trust me, you don't wanna forget," he insisted, the regret in his tone causing her to glance over at him for the first time since he began the conversation. "I'd give anything to remember even one day of our life together. It sounds like it was pretty amazing."

"It was," she agreed softly. "It really was."

His hand fell lightly on the small of her back. "Are you hungry?" When she nodded, he said, "C'mon, let's go get some lunch. My treat."

"You never give up, do you?" she complained when he pried the overalls from her hand, apparently determined to pay for those too.

He flashed her his trademark self-deprecating grin as he led the way to the registers. "Obsessive, remember? Your words, not mine."

Despite her annoyance, she couldn't help but grin back. "How could I forget?"

"I can't believe it's almost Christmas again already," she remarked, eyeing the decorations that lined the concourse once they were outside the store.

"Have you made any plans yet?" he asked.

"I'm sure Claire will want to do something for Aaron." A pang of sadness overcame her at the thought that a year ago, it had been her shopping for toys, playing Santa. Her _and_ Jack. At least she had that to look forward to next year. "What about you?"

He shrugged. "I'll probably spend it with my mom."

"Well you're welcome to come over," she offered. "Both of you. The more the merrier, right?"

"Right," he agreed. "I'll talk to Mom, see what she wants to do."

"Great." She felt her heart lift at the prospect of their first Christmas together as a soon-to-be family.

"So, what're you in the mood for?" he asked when they reached the food court. "Or should I say, what is the little guy in the mood for?"

"Oh, God." She covered her face, embarrassed. "When I first found out I was pregnant, it was French fries. Then it was red bean burritos. Right now, it's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream." She rubbed her belly affectionately. "This kid is gonna be a little butterball."

"But a cute one," he insisted.

"The cutest," she agreed and they shared a smile.

He was the first one to break it. "Well I wouldn't be a very good father if I let him eat ice cream for lunch, but how does Mexican sound? I saw a restaurant about a block from here. Then maybe we can stop for ice cream on the way home..."

* * *

I realised the other day that it's November in my story so I thought it would be fun to incorporate Christmas. I'm also thinking about writing a Christmas one shot (or mini fic) some time over the next few weeks so let me know if you have a particular request you would like granted and I'll do my best.

Next chapter: Jack and Kate bond over a milestone in Kate's pregnancy... ;)


	12. Chapter 12

Thanks for the reviews. I had hoped to have the Christmas chapter up _before_ Christmas but now it's looking like it might not be until after. The good news is that I'm working on a Christmas-themed one shot for the Secret Santa Challenge so you can expect that soon... ;)

* * *

Chapter 12.

Jack was dreaming about palm trees when one of the coconuts began to sing.

The coconut's voice followed him back to reality; once fully conscious, he realised that the music was coming from his cell. He lay there with his eyes closed for a moment, waiting for whoever it was to give up, but when it became clear that they weren't going to, he groped around on the nightstand until his hand closed over the cool plastic casing. "Hello?" he croaked, wondering if the caller knew how late it was. A cursory glance at the clock told him that it was after three am.

"Quick, you have to come over," an urgent voice said.

Instantly, he was wide awake, adrenaline coursing through him as he asked, "Kate? What's wrong? Is the baby...?" She couldn't be in labour yet. She had only just entered her twentieth week. The baby wouldn't be viable for at least another month.

"He's fine," she agreed, a smile in her voice, and he realised that it wasn't panic that was making her sound breathless: it was excitement. She was excited about something. "In fact…" She drew the next sentence out for impact. "…He just started kicking."

He sat up, leaning back against the headboard. "What? Are you sure?" She'd been feeling indistinct flutters for weeks now, but nothing that she could easily attribute to the baby.

"Yeah." She sucked in a sharp breath, and he could almost see her wince. "That was definitely a heel." Her words grew muffled as she lowered the mouthpiece, addressing their son in a hushed tone that he could only just make out, and he felt a pang at being excluded from whatever was happening on her end.

He wished that he had been there with her the first time she felt it, sharing the moment, instead of asleep on the other side of town. "Well tell him to stop until I get there. I'm on my way now," he told her, hanging up the phone. If he hurried, he could be at her side in less than twenty minutes.

The jeans he'd worn earlier lay discarded on a chair; he yanked them on over his boxers, followed by a fresh grey t-shirt that was still warm from the dryer.

He tried to be as quiet as he could but his mother was already awake, coming from the opposite end of the hall as he left the bedroom. "Jack?" she called, pulling a wine red robe on over her nightgown. "Who was on the phone?"

"Kate. I'm heading over there now."

"At this hour? The baby…?" He could see the fear etched on her face.

"Is fine," he assured her with a smile. "Kate says h—" Despite knowing themselves, they had agreed to keep the baby's gender a secret until after the birth; he caught himself before he gave it away "—_it's_ kicking."

"Is that all?" she scoffed, but she was smiling too. She tried to sound casual as she remarked, "You've been spending a lot of time with her lately."

"She's the mother of my child." It wasn't like he could really escape her.

"She's also a beautiful woman."

He wasn't sure he liked what she was implying. "Wait. You think this has to do with the way that she looks?" He would be lying if he said he hadn't noticed, but even without remembering what he had been like before, he knew that that wasn't enough of a reason for him to want to marry her.

"Of course not, Jack, but you need to be careful. She's been through so much. I don't want to see her get hurt again."

"Neither do I," he insisted. He'd hurt her enough already. "But I'm finally beginning to understand what I saw in her. She's so brave and sweet and when I'm with her..." He shook his head, at a loss to explain the connection that he felt to her. It was like nothing that he'd ever experienced. "I can't describe it. It just feels _right_." He'd already fallen in love with her once. He could easily do it again. "Don't you think I owe it to her and our kid to see where this goes? We could be a family. A real one." After all, wasn't that what they both wanted?

"And what if you're wrong? Have you thought about that?"

That was one possibility that he hadn't allowed himself to consider. There was too much at stake. "I'm not."

* * *

He didn't want to risk waking Aaron, so once he arrived at the house, he let himself in using the spare key under the mat. Downstairs was still dark, and she was nowhere in sight; he climbed the stairs to the second floor, tapping lightly on the door of the master bedroom. "Kate?"

When she failed to answer, he cracked it open, poking his head inside. She was still in bed, lying on her side with her back to him, her profile silhouetted in the dim light.

It wasn't until he got close enough to see her face that he realised that she was asleep, her chest rising and falling steadily. He was just about to leave her to it when she stirred, blinking up at him with a lazy smile; the same smile he imagined her greeting him with all those nights he came home after a late shift at the hospital. "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"No, it's okay. I've just been so tired lately," she confessed, stretching her limbs to shake off the last remnants of sleep.

"Wait until your third trimester." She had pushed the sheets down, bunching the pale green camisole that she'd worn to bed beneath her breasts to expose her belly. He crouched down beside her, laying his palm over it. "Is he still kicking?"

She frowned apologetically. "I think he's stopped now."

"It's probably too early for me to feel it anyway," he told her, trying not to let her see how disappointed he was at missing the chance to bond with his son. There would be plenty of opportunities as her pregnancy progressed. He gave her belly a gentle rub. "Goodnight, buddy." Then, just in case the books were right and their son could recognise his voice he added, "I love you."

"You do?" Kate asked, glancing from his hand, back up to his face, the hope in her tone not lost on him.

While the feelings he had for her were a confusing mixture of nostalgia and something that he couldn't quite name, it was different with the baby. Simple. "He's my son," he agreed.

He moved to stand, but she grabbed hold of his wrist to stop him. "You know, you don't have to leave. He's quiet now, but who knows when he'll start again."

She scooted closer to the edge to make a space for him behind her, inviting him to join her on the bed.

Wordlessly, he took off his shoes and stretched out on the mattress beside her, and she wriggled back into the spot she'd just vacated, pulling his arm around her so that his hand rested on her belly, ready for the next kick.

His mother's warning resounded in his head; the last thing he wanted was to break her heart again, but he didn't know what else to do, how to say no, or even if he wanted to, so he lay very still, listening to the steady rhythm of her breathing.

As hard as he tried to keep his thoughts on the baby, his mind kept sidestepping to all of the times he must have made love to her there in that very bed. "Is this where…?" he trailed off, unsure how she would react to the question, but he didn't have to say any more, because she seemed to understand what he was asking.

"No. You'd already moved out by then."

"It's kind of amazing when you think about it."

"What is?"

"Us. The baby. He shouldn't be here. None of us should. We survived a plane crash, and if that wasn't lucky enough, in one night, without even trying…"

She turned around in his arms so that they were facing each other. "I don't know if you can call it lucky, Jack. We were careless. _I_ was careless. He's only here because I forgot to take the pill."

He studied her expression in the darkness, trying to figure out if she was lying when she told him that she was happy that she'd gotten pregnant. "I thought you said you didn't regret it?" It hurt him to think that she might only be pretending to want the baby when he did, more than he ever would have believed possible.

"I don't," she assured him. "What I regret is how it happened. I was so_ angry_. I wish…" A lone tear trickled down her cheek.

On impulse, he reached over and brushed it away with his thumb. "What do you wish?"

"I wish it happened when it was supposed to. When we were together."

According to her, he'd been the kind of man who believed in things like signs. The old him would have said all of this was fate. "Who says it didn't?"

If possible, she was even more beautiful illuminated by the moonlight that filtered in through the curtains. A powerful urge swept through him as his eyes locked with hers; before he could think to hard about what he was about to do, he began to lean in, resting his hand on her side to steady himself. When she lifted hers to the back of his neck, waiting to see what he would do next, he knew that she wasn't going to try to resist him.

Taking this as encouragement, he continued to bridge the gap between them; she was so close that he could smell the spearmint that lingered on her breath when he felt a soft thump against his palm, as if in protest of the slight pressure the movement had put on her womb. He froze with his lips an inch or two from hers, his eyes growing wide with shock. Then, without speaking, they both began to laugh.

He repositioned himself so that his weight was on either side of her belly. "Sorry, bud," he whispered, kissing the place where their son's foot had been instead. Her body was as soft and warm and he'd imagined it would be. He kissed her stomach again, grinning up at her when the baby rewarded him with another visible kick, sending a tremor through her skin.

"I always knew that you'd be great at this. At being a dad," she announced, watching him with a smile.

"How can you say that when our son hasn't even been born yet?"

"I can say that because he hasn't even been born yet and you're already so good with him. Just like you were with Aaron."

"What about you?" He still didn't know much about her relationship with Aaron; in fact, the more he thought about it, the more it occurred to him that he knew very little about her: just that she was a convicted murderer, that they'd met in a plane crash, and that she was very likely the love of his life, which meant that he should know.

"What about me?" She wrinkled her nose in confusion, and not for the first time, he found himself wondering if he had ever noticed how cute some of her expressions were before. Or had he really had his head stuck so far up his ass that he couldn't see how utterly perfect she was? It was strange to think that he was actually jealous of _himself_, but he was, because he'd had her, and for some reason that he couldn't quite fathom, he'd let her go.

"We always talk about me. I wanna hear about you."

"Okay," she agreed slowly, reaching behind her for a pillow to slide beneath her belly. "What d'you wanna know?"

He decided to start with the basics. "What's your favourite colour?"

He wasn't sure why, but this made her laugh. "Pink."

The only time that he'd ever seen her wear pink was when he took her to the obstetrician. "Liar," he teased her and they shared a smile.

"Green."

"Better." He settled back beside her with his head propped on his hand. "Favourite food?"

"Right now, it's anything. But I'll tell you what I don't like. Mangoes. I haven't been able to look at them since we got off the island." Before he could carry on with the subject, she asked, "Next question."

"Birthplace?"

"Ames, Iowa."

While he'd had her pegged as a small town girl, he hadn't expected her home to be so far away. "D'you ever miss it?"

She shook her head sadly. "No. My life is here now…"

* * *

Next chapter: Christmas, and something BIG... ;)


	13. Chapter 13

Thanks for the reviews. Sorry it's taken me so long to update but I've been busy with Christmas, etc. I decided it would be cruel to leave you in suspense any longer so here is Christmas chapter with the "big thing" as promised. ;)

* * *

Chapter 13.

"Any thoughts on what I should get Kate?" Jack asked Claire as they left the toy store a few days before Christmas, loaded up with parcels for Aaron, who was safely at home with the object of his attention.

"You don't have to get her anything," Claire told him. "She's happy just having you home."

He wished that he could believe her, but it wasn't enough. "It's not much of a gift if I still can't remember her," he argued bitterly. She deserved something more, something really special, that would show her how sorry he was for all of the pain that she'd had to endure because of him and how much he would love to be able to take it all back. There was nothing he could give her that would make up for abandoning her – twice – but he wanted to try. It was really the least he could do.

Claire eyed him with a thoughtful look. "You really care about her, don't you?" she asked.

She was still a virtual stranger to him, and yet he was constantly worrying about her: how she was feeling, what she was eating, if she was sleeping okay… "It's kind of hard not to when she's carrying my child," he agreed. He regretted his choice of words when a flicker of sadness passed over her features. "I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?" From what he could father, Aaron's father hadn't felt the same way about her. He hadn't been to see him once in four years.

She shook her head slightly, cutting off that avenue of conversation. "This isn't about that though, is it?" she continued, changing the subject back to him and Kate. "You like her."

The teasing way she said it made him wonder what it would have been like to grow up alongside her. "Would it be so crazy if I did?" Falling for the mother of his child: wasn't that the dream?

"No," she assured him. "I think it's romantic. Most people only fall in love once. You get to do it twice."

If she let him. He still wasn't sure if that was what she wanted, or if she was just trying to keep things friendly between them for the baby. "Do you really think I have a shot at getting her back?" he asked.

"A shot?" Claire's expression was incredulous. "Jack, have you _seen_ the way she looks at you?"

He had. That was the problem. How was he supposed to have a relationship with her in the present when she couldn't let go of the past? Of _their_ past? It seemed like their whole future hinged on him remembering and he still wasn't convinced that he could. "What if it's not really me she wants? What if it's the guy I _used _to be?"

"Then you just have to show her that you're still that guy," Claire told him with a shrug.

The whole time they were talking, he was searching for ideas; the corners of his lips turned up into a smile as his eyes fell on a display in the window of one of the stores up ahead. "I think I know how."

* * *

"Merry Christmas," Kate said, looking as lovely as ever as she answered the door in a red wrap dress that hugged each of her newly-discovered curves, her long dark curls spilling loosely down her back.

Passing her on the way into the house, Jack stooped to kiss her cheek, his mouth lingering half an inch from where he really wanted to be. "Merry Christmas, Kate." He let go of her arm, repositioning his hand on her belly. "You too, little guy." He prodded it gently with the tip of his middle finger, breaking into a grin when he felt his son prod back lightly in response.

It was his mother's turn to greet her after he stepped back, folding her in a warm embrace. Rather than release her completely, she held her at arm's length. "Look at you. You're even more beautiful than the last time I saw you. Pregnancy really agrees with you."

This seemed to embarrass Kate, who ignored it, reaching for his mother's hand instead. "Here, give me your hand." She placed the other woman's palm on her belly where Jack's had been. "There," she said, pushing down. "Do you feel that?"

Jack knew that the baby must have kicked right at that moment because his mother glanced down at it, startled. "Wow, that is just…" She shook her head in amazement. "Thank you."

"Looks like the guest of honour has arrived," Claire's voice announced; Jack looked over to see her coming down the stairs with Aaron, who was dressed up for the occasion in a pair of khaki trousers and a blue button down shirt.

"Merry Christmas, big brother," she said, dropping Aaron's hand on the last step so that she could hug Jack.

He felt an urgent tug on his wrist, glancing down to see Aaron gazing up at him with huge blue eyes that were impossible to resist. "Uncle Jack! Come see what Santa bringed me!"

It was obvious that he wasn't going to take no for an answer, so Jack allowed himself to be dragged into the living room where his nephew's new toys lay scattered at the base of the tree amidst mounds of crumpled wrapping paper, listening to him tell him about each one.

When he was finished, he gave him his gift: a parking garage for his toy cars, which he then assembled for him.

While Claire and his mother were busy helping him populate it with the brightly-coloured cars that his mother had bought to go with it, Jack approached Kate, who was sitting alone on the sofa, nursing a mug of hot chocolate.

"I can see why they say 'Like a kid at Christmas'," he remarked as he pushed a throw pillow aside and sat down beside her.

She had been watching the little boy fondly but she tore her eyes from him then. "Get used to it."

He felt the same flutter of anticipation he always got whenever anyone mentioned his son. "I'm actually looking forward to it." He took the mug from her gently, setting it to one side so that he could present her with the small, misshapen package he'd brought over with him.

"What's this?" she asked, turning it over in her hands.

"Open it," he told her.

She did as instructed, peeling off the paper to reveal a white bear with a candy cane striped scarf and hat.

"Is this a polar bear?" she asked, glancing up at him a strange look. Her voice was wary; worried, even.

"It's for the baby," he explained. "I wanted him to have something to mark his first Christmas."

This seemed to relax her. "You know that's not until next year, right?" she teased him.

"He's here now, isn't he?" he countered.

"I guess he is," she agreed with a smile. "His first toy." She leant over to place it on the coffee table in front of her where she could admire it. "We can put it in the nursery when it's ready."

* * *

"I'm glad you decided to come," Kate told him later that night as they sat side by side under a blanket, watching_ It's A Wonderful Life _on mother had gone home after dinner, and Claire was upstairs getting Aaron ready for bed, leaving them alone. "It wouldn't feel like Christmas without you."

All day, he'd been waiting for the perfect moment; deciding that this was it, he reached behind the couch cushion, producing a large yellow envelope.

"Is that for the baby too?" Kate asked when he handed it to her.

"No, this one's for you," he told her. "Both of us, actually."

He could see that she was surprised. "You didn't have to get me anything," she said, echoing Claire's words, and he knew what she was thinking: it wasn't like they were together.

"I wanted to," he assured her.

She ripped back the seal, pulling out a handful of glossy brochures. "Shelter Cove?" she read, glancing up at Jack with puzzled look. "I'm not sure I get it."

"It's up north, in Humboldt Country," he explained. "I wanted to take you to Hawaii, but somehow I don't think your probation officer would be very happy with me."

"You want us take a vacation together?" she asked uncertainly. It was obviously the last thing that she was expecting.

"This isn't about sex, if that's what you're thinking," he assured her when she went back to studying the brochure in silence. He didn't want her to get it into her head that he was asking for anything from her in return. "The house I rented has three bedrooms. You can have the master and I'll take one of the guest rooms. I just thought it would be a good way for us to spend some time together, getting to know each other again before the baby comes." What he didn't tell her was that he was hoping that the combination of the romantic locale and the ocean might be just what he needed to reawaken the feelings she was afraid he'd lost forever. That was the best gift that he could think of to give her.

"You rented a house?" she repeated, still looking dazed.

He nodded, encouraged by her curiosity. "You're gonna love it. It's right on the water so you can go to the beach any time you want," he told her, careful not to sound too presumptuous. He couldn't expect her to want to do everything with him. They weren't a couple anymore, even if she was still wearing his ring.

"I don't know what to say."

"Then say 'Thank you'," he prompted her.

She considered this for a moment longer, waging a silent battle with herself, before her smile won out. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he told her, and a comfortable silence fell over them.

She broke it after a moment. "You do realise that I don't have a bathing suit anymore? At least not one that fits."

"Then I guess I'll just have to go swimming without you," he teased her. "Or we could make another trip to the mall…"

"Are you sure you really wanna see me in a bathing suit right now?" she complained, patting her middle.

"Why not? I think you look cute."

"Yeah?" she asked, seemingly pleased with the compliment.

"Yeah," he agreed with a smile.

They lapsed into silence again. "Jack? Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure." He had a feeling he knew what was coming.

"Why did you try to kiss me the other night?"

He could try to invent an excuse that he doubted she would believe, but what would be the point of that? "Because… Because I like you," he confessed.

He knew that this was the right answer when her face lit up with hope. "So you wouldn't mind if I did this?" She placed a chaste kiss on his lips, pulling back slightly to test his reaction.

He wanted to know what it would have felt like if he'd kissed her that night so he leant forward, returning the kiss, gently at first, then with more passion, urging her mouth open with his, his hands winding through her hair, cradling the back of her skull.

After a while, she tried to break it, but before she could, he kissed her again, his hands moving from her head, down to her waist, the blanket falling away to the floor as he lifted her onto his lap. He could feel her belly pressing against him as he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her closer still.

Then, without warning, a wave of dizziness swept over him; he couldn't seem to get enough air to fill his lungs and stop him from feeling weak, and when he looked down, the scar on his stomach was bleeding, the life force slowly draining away from him…

He jerked back so abruptly that he almost dropped her.

Sensing the change in him, she slid off his lap, back onto the couch beside him. "Jack? Are you okay?" she asked, taking his face in both hands to get him to look at her. "What happened? What's wrong?"

His breathing was still ragged as he forced himself to meet her concerned expression. "I saw something." He wasn't sure if it was a memory, a vision or some kind of waking nightmare, but whatever it was, it had shaken him more than anything else that had happened to him since the day he found himself in the hospital in Tunisia. He was dying, he knew that with the same certainty that he knew his own name.

She watched him intently as she waited for him to finish explaining. "We were on a cliff," he continued when he felt calm enough to speak. "I was hurt and you… You were crying, and then... You kissed me." She let out a barely audible gasp. "Does that mean anything to you?" Part of him hoped that she would say no because he didn't want to believe that what he'd just experienced was real.

But he could see in her eyes that it was. She nodded tearfully. "You just remembered our last kiss…"

* * *

Next chapter: Kate's thoughts on all of this... ;)


	14. Author's Note

Author's Note:

Okay, so here's the deal. I've been asked several times if I've abandoned this fic so I wanted to post something to let you all know that I haven't. But after writing 48 stories about Jack and Kate (and not seeing a new episode in almost a year), I'm finding it difficult to remain as passionate about these characters as I was when I first started writing about them. Even though the concept of Homecoming is new, it's getting harder and harder for me to come up with new ideas for scenes and dialogue that don't make me feel like I'm repeating something I've already done. In short, I need some time away from Jate and Lost, which is why I've started a new WIP for another fandom. I'll try to get an update out to you as soon as I can, but in the mean time, if you want to help, you can go to my profile and vote in my new poll or tell me what you think in an anonymous review. (I'm not sure how long it will take to show up so the question is 'Should Kate tell Jack about the island?') Hopefully that will help me figure out how to handle the next chapter. ;)


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